What's the difference between a DVD RW & DVD RAM?

[mperkins37]

I got the second Optical drive installed into my MacPro a couple weeks ago & I was wondering what the difference is between the DVD-RW, that came with the machine & the DVD-RAM that I Installed? Both seem to work the same as far as I can tell. BTW, I have Toast 9 on the way as soon as its available, I pre-ordered from macmall with a rebate. Waiting on deliveries this week is going to make time drag. I have Toast, an ACD 30" & A Seagate 1tb HD on the way currently.
Anyway, what's the scoop with DVD-RW vs DVD_Ram?

 

[WardC]

I believe they are one in the same. The latest drives read and write CDR/CDRWs and DVDs, and write DVD-R, DVD+R, and dual-layer DVDR (8.5GB disks). The latest drives that come with the Mac Pro write DVD-R dual layer at 8x (I believe)...the dual layer disk is one-sided write surface, but basically burns the DVD data on two different chemical layers in the disk, doubling the amount of data that can be written. DVDR dual layer burning is alot slower, and reading the disc is slower as well. The dual-layer disks are much pricer.

So...I am guessing the DVD RAM is essentially a read/write/rewrite CDR/DVDR

 

[ThirteenXIII]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd-ram

 

[Nermal]

The key practical difference is that DVD RAM functions like a removable drive; you can drag files onto it, delete them, etc. You don't need to use special authoring software.

 

[CWallace]

The key practical difference is that DVD RAM functions like a removable drive; you can drag files onto it, delete them, etc. You don't need to use special authoring software.

Correct. You essentially can treat it like a 4.7GB floppy. It is also very robust, with a very high read-write threshold and strong error correction. The main drawback is it is pretty slow (because of that error correction), but higher speed versions were recently released.

I use DVD-RAM as my third line of backup of important data because of it's robustness.