Now more than ever before bulk optical storage is available to the masses with the steadily falling prices of both the drives and media. This month we look at the feasibility of ditching that CD-RW drive in favour of updating to something with a little more room to grow. DVD is the ideal storage option for business backup, with its huge volume and low media cost, but is also becoming popular in the consumer market as CDs stop making the grade for our file archiving requirements - forcing users to look elsewhere.

Many of us have avoided taking the plunge into the DVD recordable market for a long time for fear of obsolescence once a final victor was declared in the format wars. Some are convinced there will never be a single victorious format as both the 'plus' and 'minus' camps both offer different and relevant contributions to the technology, and neither are able to offer guaranteed 100% compatibility with home players or all makes of DVD-ROMs. This month we've taken ten models ranging from a mere $299 to a less modest $799 and sorted the winners from the less impressive performers.

While CD is still the choice budget storage, given recordable media prices are below the one-dollar mark and every new machine comes bundled with a drive, but DVD does offer plenty in the long-term storage department, with re-writable discs rated up to 100 years if stored under the proper conditions. However, the most obvious advantage is the huge volume increase, over seven times greater than a single 650MB CD-R.

With popularity on the rise and pricing looking to free-fall towards the end of the year, this is a must-have piece of hardware for the archiving and media sharing users amongst us. Since the market is yet to standardise with a single format, we've done the leg-work for you, narrowing down the multitude of drives available we bring you the PC Authority guide to DVD burners.