Just about every commercial software manufacturer uses CDs to distribute their products. Digital map manufacturers are no different; they extensively use CDs for map data. For example, the National Geographic Back Roads Explorer (a whopping 16-CD set) provides topographic maps for the entire United States. You can run these CDs on any CD drive; the higher the read speed, the faster the map data will load and display. Having a CD drive that can write (burn) CD-ROMs is way useful if you plan to download large amounts of map data from the Internet. Because data files can be very large, archive the data on CDs instead of cluttering your hard drive with infrequently used files. If you’re not going to be archiving map data, consider using CD-RWs (rewriteables) because you can delete files from them, using them again and again.
Computers are now commonly equipped with a DVD drive, which can read both CDs and DVDs. DVDs rock because they can store a whole lot more data than a CD; compare 4.7GB on a DVD versus a relatively paltry 700MB on a CD. As DVD drives become more commonplace on computers, expect map software companies to start offering their products on DVD media. This will make life easier for vendors who currently distribute map data on multiple CDs.
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