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In this video I’m gonna ask that you step
back in time to the days when optical media

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was still a thing everyone used.

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Pretend it’s 2005 or something.

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Great.

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Your Motorola Razr is the envy of the neighborhood,
PT Cruisers are still on showroom floors,

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and your iPod--that’s just the bee’s knees.

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So many songs in your pocket right now!

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And it even plays video!

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Ho boy is it a great time to be alive.

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But you know what kinda sucks?

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Even though you’ve got this awesome CD and
DVD burner in your PC, it’s not exactly

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the most convenient thing to use.

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Every time you pop in a blank disc, Windows
is all like

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“What do you want to do with this disc?”

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and now you have to make a decision.

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Curse these choices!

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I just want this to appear as a removable storage device
like these new fangled thumb drive things.

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Or even my trusty floppy diskette!

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You can sort of use it like a flash drive,
but it’s slow, requires formatting, and

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is just a bunch of poopy nonsense.

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But what if I were to tell you that there
was a variant of DVD which actually was designed

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to function as removable storage?

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That my friends is DVD-RAM.

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RAM????

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That’s right, DVD Random Access Memory.

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Just from a single glance of this disc, you’ll
probably see there’s something a little…

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different about the format.

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Unlike your garden variety DVD-R, either dash
or plus,

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this disc doesn’t require special formatting,

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files can be added to it or erased
from it on the fly,

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and aside from horridly slow read and write times compared to a

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contemporary
drug store flash drive, it behaves exactly

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as if it were a 4.7 gigabyte USB storage device.

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Perhaps the weirdest thing about DVD-RAM is
when it was released.

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It’s way earlier than you might think.

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The first version of MacOS to support it natively
was 8.6.

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8.6!

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DVD-RAM was first standardized in 1996,
pretty much at the dawn of DVD itself, and

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the first DVD-RAM discs and drives were available
in 1998.

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So why the heck didn’t it become, like,
the gold standard of removable storage?

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4.7 gigabytes of storage space in 1998 was
akin to what many contemporary hard drives

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had on board.

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A rewritable disc, with completely random
access, with that much storage capacity, seems

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like some sort of miracle product for 1998.

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And remember, this is DVD we’re talking
about, so even 1X drives were way faster than

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a floppy disk, and slightly faster than an
Iomega Zip drive (with dozens of times the

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storage space).

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Before we answer that question, let’s look
a little deeper into what makes DVD-RAM special,

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and why it has these little dashes all over
it.

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DVD-RAM discs are structured as if they are
a hard drive platter.

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Or a floppy disk.

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See, DVDs and CDs usually have their data
written onto one continuous spiral of pits

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and lands.

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Think of it like a very long list of information,
with little bits of code peppered in telling

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the drive where along the list it’s reading.

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This structure works great for things like
audio and video data, but it begins to fall

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apart when you want to store many, smaller
files.

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Every time you want to add files to a disc,
a new session needs to be made with a new

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table of contents written after the end of
the first.

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It’s essentially like creating an entirely
new list of information, and tacking it onto

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the old one.

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And each time you do it you have to also say
where the older sessions are on the disc.

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And whenever you want to remove files, it
becomes tricky to utilize that space again

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(assuming we’re talking about a rewritable
format) without erasing the entire disc.

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That’s why Windows is asking you how you
want to use the disc.

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If you choose “like a flash drive” it
will format it as a multi-session disc, and

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it will do its best to present it to you as
if it were a fully-featured removable drive.

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But DVD-RAM discs aren’t like that at all.

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Instead, the information on the disc is recorded
in concentric rings.

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Like a hard disk or floppy disk, data is encoded
on physical tracks and sectors.

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These little dashes are the boundaries between
the hard sectors created at the time of the

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disc’s manufacture.

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These create a disc where each physical location
has a defined value, and allows for formatting

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the disc with any file system you like.

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And that’s why they appear to Windows as
a removable storage device.

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Because they are!

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The operating system can natively write to
and read from this disc (assuming it supports

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the file system) without any session writing
nonsense.

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Windows XP natively supported FAT32 formatted
discs, and starting with Windows Vista, UDF

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formatted discs were supported as well.

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MacOS could format them as HFS and HFS+, too.

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It really was an optical format that behaved
as if it… weren’t an optical format.

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DVD-RAM was very much the best of both worlds.

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And keeping with the best-of-both-worlds theme,
DVD-RAM discs were made with incredibly stable

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phase-change alloys, meaning that the discs
could withstand being re-written upwards of

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100,000 times.

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Plus they were very stable in storage, with
an estimated life of 30 years or more.

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And to allay concerns about disc damage, early
versions were stored in caddies so the disc

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was never actually touched by grimy little hands.

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So then, why the fudge didn’t DVD-RAM become
THE storage format of the 2000’s?

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If you guessed price, you’re probably right.

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But not so fast, there’s more to consider!

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First, let’s acknowledge that this disc
here is technically DVD-RAM Version 2.

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The earliest discs were only 2.58 gigabytes
in capacity, however double-sided cartridges

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were common which could hold twice as much.

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That’s 5.16 gigabytes for those playing
at home.

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And if you formatted these discs in the UDF
format, they could be used as a single 5.16

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gigabyte volume.

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DVD-RAM v2 bumped capacity up to the standard
4.7 gigabytes of a single-layer DVD, and of

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course double sided discs were still available
which could hold twice as much.

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That’s 9.4 gigabytes for those playing at
home.

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V2 also increased write speed to 2x.

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And this disc is actually DVD-RAM v2 revision
1, which supported write speeds of 3x.

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Fascinating.

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DVD-RAM discs did get faster, with revision
6 supporting 16x speed, but from what I can

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gather these discs are very rare, and along
with a faster write speed came poorer longevity.

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These 2-3x discs aren’t that old, I think
I bought them in 2010 or 2011, but that was

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by far the most common speed ever produced.

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Also, the cartridges were largely dropped
in favor of some magical extra hard coating

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on the bottom of the discs, which to be honest
seems to work pretty well considering I’ve

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left this disc caseless in a junk box for
who knows how long.

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But let’s go back to 1998.

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What were prices like for DVD-RAM?

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Well, it’s not entirely clear, but according
to the Handbook of Emerging Communications

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Technologies, Creative Labs had a DVD-RAM
drive available for $500, and a single-sided

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2.58 gigabyte disc would run you $30.

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A double sided disc went for $45.

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Other drives and discs varied in price, but
let’s stick with those price points for now.

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So, in January of 1999, Iomega’s Zip drives
cost just $100 for an internal drive, and

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the disks themselves were as cheap as $10
each.

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Assuming you bought 10 of them.

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Obviously the barrier to entry is much much
lower, but how does this compare in cost per

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100 megabytes?

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Let’s do the math.

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A DVD-RAM drive with one double-sided cartridge
would cost $545 and would net you 5.16 gigabytes

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of storage space.

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That works out to $10.56 per 100 megabytes.

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Now, a 100 megabyte Zip disk costs $10, so
it looks to be barely more expensive than

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a Zip disk system, even accounting for the
initial cost of the drive.

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If you include the cost of the Zip drive,
that same amount of storage costs slightly

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more on Zip, with 52 disks plus a drive costing
$11.90 per 100 megabytes.

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Of course, this assumes you actually need
52 zip disks worth of storage space, but let’s

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suppose you do.

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As soon as you buy just one more DVD-RAM cartridge,
the cost per 100 megabytes plummets to $5.71.

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A DVD-RAM drive did cost 5 times as much as
a Zip drive, but the media cost per unit of

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data was less than a tenth that of Zip. 100
megabytes on Zip was $10.

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100 megabytes of DVD-RAM works out to $0.87.

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One of the crazier things about this to me
is that DVD-RAM was cheaper per gigabyte than

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a hard drive!

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It took until the end of 2000 for hard disk
drives to drop below $9 per gigabyte, when

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DVD-RAM was available in 1998 at $8.70 per
gigabyte.

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And of course, the cost of DVD-RAM media dropped,
too.

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2000 was the year that 4.7 gigabyte discs
appeared, and the drives stayed at the $500 mark.

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The cost of these new discs in may of 2001
worked out to about $6.25 per gigabyte, and

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it was only then that hard drives began to
dip below that price point.

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So then, and it seems like I’m asking this
question a lot, why didn’t DVD-RAM become

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the new super floppy?

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It sure seems like it could have.

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A gigantic removable storage medium, almost
as big as your entire hard drive, which works

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natively with your operating system with a
true FAT32, HFS, or UDF file system, and was

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actually cheaper per gigabyte than virtually
any hard drive for some years, seems like

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an absolutely tantalizing product.

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Why wasn’t this, huge?

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Well, there appear to be three answers.

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Speed, compatibility, and simple confusion.

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Let’s start with the first one.

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Although a 1x DVD drive reads data at a blazing
fast 1.5 megabytes per second, that wasn’t

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blazing fast for long.

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Sure, in 1998, it was amazing.

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Not as fast as your hard drive, but way way
faster than a floppy, and a bit faster than

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a Zip disk.

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However, part of DVD-RAM’s format specifications
was data verification at the hardware level,

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which was great for data integrity, but effectively
halved the write speed to 750 kilobytes per

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second because it double-checked everything
it wrote.

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It does appear, though, that with newer media
and by disabling the verification function,

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4 megabyte per second write speeds were possible.

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That’s still not great, though, as a 32X
compact disc burner can get to that speed.

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Another big hurdle with DVD-RAM was that virtually
no DVD players knew what the heck to do with them.

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Much like CD-audio vs CD-ROM, DVD had this
problem with distinguishing DVD-Video from

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DVD-Data applications.

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A lot of consumers just saw DVD and expected
to be able to make DVD movies on any disc

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with this logo, but they’d find that DVD-RAM
discs just wouldn’t work with a DVD player.

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This wasn’t necessarily a problem with the
older cartridge-based discs because…

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cartridges

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(and it should be noted that the early cartridge
based DVD-RAM drives could generally read

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naked DVD-ROM and DVD-Video discs, too), but
once the 4.7 gigabyte discs appeared without

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a cartridge, suddenly the potential for missed
expectations comes into play.

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And this leads to the third problem: confusion.

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Although DVD-RAM was among the first writable
standards created under the DVD umbrella,

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it shortly found itself competing with DVD-R,
DVD+R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW.

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I’m not even going to get into the dash
vs plus nonsense right now, but the significant

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thing here is that all of these formats were
compatible with a standard DVD player, with

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some caveats.

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So even though they didn’t work as well
as a removable storage device on a PC, you

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would get just as much storage capacity for
things like data backups, and you could make

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DVD movies with any of these disc formats
to play on your TV.

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Another plus is that these formats quickly
fell in price, with a DVD-R disc running for less

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than $10 in 2001.

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Adding to the woes of DVD-RAM, all of those
formats quickly shot up in speed, with 12X

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and 16X write speeds becoming pretty normal
for blank DVD media.

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With DVD-RAM limited to 3X on a good day,
its native file system compatibility advantages

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came with a lot of speed downsides.

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And of course, there’s a fourth problem
I haven’t mentioned yet.

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Flash memory.

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While DVD-RAM and all its cousins were duking
it out, flash media started to become a viable thing.

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Yeah, it took until around 2005 or 2006 for
USB flash drives to even become available

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in sizes approaching that of DVDs, but it
was way more convenient, and quickly became

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available in larger-than-DVD storage volumes,
anyway.

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Plus it was generally faster than DVD-RAM,
with 5 megabyte per second write speeds being

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common in 2004.

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So, DVD-RAM kinda just became an odd duck.

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If you wanted a storage volume that you could
just throw a bunch of arbitrary small files

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onto, it probably didn’t need to be nearly
this big.

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A small flash drive was good enough.

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And before that, 100 megabyte Zip disks were
still plenty useful.

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And if you needed to backup a large amount
of data, a faster, cheaper DVD-R or RW would

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probably be fine.

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Really, CD-Rs were fine for most people.

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Somewhat ironically, where DVD-RAM came to
flourish was in set-top DVD recorders.

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In fact, that’s why I have these.

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Their nature as an agnostic storage volume
with extremely versatile re-writability meant

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that they were excellent for recording TV.

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A DVD recorder with a DVD-RAM disc was essentially

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a DVR with removable storage volumes of 4.7 gigabytes.

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And since there was no need for speeds faster
than 1x anyway, it was a perfect fit.

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So even though DVD-RAM never worked with DVD
players, DVD-recorders liked them best.

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Kinda weird, but that’s how it panned out.

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Of course this also kinda hurt DVD-RAM in
the long run, because it likely stifled development

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of faster discs.

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Since their most prominent application didn’t
even need 2x discs, there was little incentive

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to market 4, 8, or 16 x media.

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Had 16X DVD-RAM become common, perhaps they
would have become the new floppy.

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One area where I think DVD-RAM would have
KILLED is in DVD camcorders.

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Remember those?

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Yeah, neither do I.

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I kid, but 8 cm DVD-RAM
discs were available, and I think that in

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a camcorder they would have made a lot of
sense.

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Seeing how much better the set-top DVD recorder
experience was with DVD-RAM vs any other DVD format

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I’d think it would be a perfect
marriage for a camcorder.

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Easily delete individual clips.

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Import them into your computer natively.

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Etc, etc.

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And if they came with software for burning
full-size DVD-Rs of your clips, you could

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just have a few DVD-RAM discs, and use them
over and over and over again.

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I’m pretty sure there are some DVD camcorders
that work with DVD-RAM, but it doesn’t appear

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to have been that common.

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Most DVD multi drives made from the mid 2000’s
onward can read and write to DVD-RAM discs,

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so although they are hard to find (especially
these days) they are still at least marginally useful.

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If for nothing else, their incredible longevity
may make them suitable for archiving data.

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But I really think it’s a shame that they
didn’t go very far.

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An optical disc that behaves like a hard drive
seemed to me a sort of holy grail, and when

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I first learned about DVD-RAM, I was puzzled
by its poor adoption.

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But having made this video, it’s not exactly
surprising.

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Oh well, sometimes great ideas just don’t
get traction.

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Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoyed
this look into the life of DVD-RAM.

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These guys definitely fall into my “that’s
a shame” category of tech, but to be frank

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we’re well past optical media for everyday
data storage anyway.

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When you can get a 4 terabyte portable hard
drive for $100, buying 851 DVDs doesn’t

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make a lotta sense.

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I’ll be exploring some more details of the
format, such as drive behavior when writing

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to a disc, and comparing large vs small file
transfers in a video on my second channel,

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00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:17,980
Technology Connections 2.

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Clever name, I know.

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00:16:19,690 --> 00:16:22,760
You can check it out through the link in the
description or through the card I hopefully

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00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:24,100
remembered to add.

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00:16:24,100 --> 00:16:27,690
As always, thank you to everyone who supports
the channel through Patreon, especially the

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00:16:27,690 --> 00:16:30,240
fine folks that are scrolling up your screen.

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00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:35,930
With your generous support, Technology Connections
has gone from side project to going concern,

259
00:16:35,930 --> 00:16:38,180
and I’m ever so grateful for your pledges.

260
00:16:38,180 --> 00:16:42,260
If you’d like to join these people in supporting
the channel, check out the link below or you

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00:16:42,260 --> 00:16:44,320
can hang around for the button on the endscreen.

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00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:46,900
Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll
see you next time!

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♫ terrifyingly smooth jazz ♫

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DVD-RAM discs were made with incredibly stable
phase-change alloys, meaning that the discs

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could be with…

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00:16:58,420 --> 00:17:01,860
[stares intensely with that
face]

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00:17:02,100 --> 00:17:05,800
And this disc is actually DVD-RAM v2 reversion
1.

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00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:06,580
Reversion?

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00:17:06,580 --> 00:17:07,700
Revision.

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00:17:07,700 --> 00:17:11,360
If you choose “like a flash drive” it
will format it as if it is a mul ple eh be

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00:17:11,360 --> 00:17:12,360
de pe ditchi de.

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00:17:13,740 --> 00:17:14,740
Eurrgh.

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00:17:16,860 --> 00:17:19,860
Came with a gle be blertche buh..

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00:17:19,860 --> 00:17:20,700
Most D…

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00:17:20,700 --> 00:17:22,540
Most DV… [laughs]

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00:17:22,540 --> 00:17:26,120
Most D… why am I laughing at the way I’m
saying “most?”

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00:17:26,120 --> 00:17:32,740
A DVD-RAM drive with one double-sided cartridge
would cost $545, and would net you five dollars…

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00:17:32,740 --> 00:17:35,240
five… pffffff eugh.