A drive that uses optical technology to read data from CDs.

a storage device that uses Compact Disks (CDs). The drives come in various speeds measured relative to an audio CD player. Most new systems have speeds between 50 and 52X. Some CD drives are CD-RW, meaning they can read, write, and erase CD information (requires special CDs).

is a drive mechanism for recording or playing CDs. The most common types are CD-ROM, MO (magneto-optical), and WORM (Write Once, Read Many).

(also called an optical drive) A CD Drive is the hardware that is used to read the information (in analogue form) on a CD-ROM. A medium on which data is stored. Some CD-ROM Drives can write or burn data from your computer on to the CD-ROM.

A Compact Disc drive, used to read data CDs (also called CD-ROMs). A CD can store up to 650 Megabytes (millions of characters). These days, new programs and data are often distributed on CD-ROM, so a CD-Drive is almost mandatory. A CD-RW drive is able to write to special CD media (either CD-Recordable or CD-ReWritable). CD-Recordable media can be written only once, but can be read as often as you wish. CD-ReWritable media can be written multiple times (a minimum of 1000 times). Both types of media are available from office supply stores as well as computer stores. CD-R media is currently costing about $1.25 - $2.50 each, while CD-RW costs about $10 - $20 each. CD-RW drives are used both to backup data from your computer and to make data copies for transport to other computers. Be careful with CD-RW media - very few older CD-ROM drives can read these discs.