Optical discs and drives

_{Optical Disk Drive Defined}

An optical disk drive (ODD) uses a laser light to read data from or write data to an optical disc. These include CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. This allows you to play music or watch movies using pre-recorded discs. Computer software also often comes on one of these discs, so you need an optical drive to install software. Most modern drives allow you to write to an empty disc, so you can create your own music CDs or create a backup copy of important data.

_Components

An optical disk drive uses a laser to read and write data. A laser in this context means an electromagnetic wave with a very specific wavelength within or near the visible light spectrum. Different types of discs require different wavelengths. For compact discs, or CDs, a wavelength of 780 nanometers (nm) is used, which is in the infrared range. For digital video discs, or DVDs, a wavelength of 650 nm (red) is used, while for Blu-ray discs a wavelength of 405 nm (violet) is used.

_{Different Types of Discs}

The earliest optical disc used in computer systems was the CD. This allowed you to play regular music CDs on your computer. Specifically for use in computers, however, CD-ROMs (Compact Disc Read-Only Memory) were developed. These are like regular CDs but contain read-only media, such as data files or software. 

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