Drive Letter Access

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Drive Letter Access

Developer:	Sonic Solutions
Latest release:	5.2 build 09a / November 21, 2005
OS:	Windows
Use:	optical disc authoring software
License:	proprietary
Website:	sonic.com

Drive Letter Access (DLA) is a commercial technology for the Microsoft Windows operating system that allows one to record data to optical media like any other drive volume.

Using DLA, optical media is formatted in the Universal Disk Format (UDF) file system and acts like a hard disk, enabling one to read/write/erase data just like you would do on your hard drive. One can "drag & drop," rename, move or "delete" files and directories on optical media.

DLA is by far the most popular packet writing software, partly because it once was (and still is) available for free with many CD and DVD recording drives. DLA had been originally programmed by VERITAS Software engineers, and later sold to Sonic Solutions in 2002. Up to the present, both Veritas and Sonic Solutions have released a lot of custom versions of DLA to various OEM manufacturers under various OEM agreements. Most of the branded CD/DVD recording drives, both retail and OEM, now come with their custom version of DLA as a supplemental software on the driver disk. For example, there are HP, IBM, and Sony versions available. All the variations are actually built on the same codebase and technically have very little difference from the original DLA. Sonic Solutions itself sells the original DLA as a part of their $49 CD/DVD recording package.

DLA uses two technologies called packet writing and UDF:

1 Packet Writing
2 UDF (Universal Disk Format)
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Packet Writing

DLA allows one to add data incrementally to a disc in small or large quantities, known as Packet Writing. Data is written to the disc in small "packets". It is possible to record even a single file at a time. Unlike previous methods of writing data to CD (Disc-at-Once and multi-session), packet writing does not waste much time or disc space. There is no arbitrary limit to the number of packets that can be written to a CD.

[edit] UDF (Universal Disk Format)

Universal Disk Format is a file system for use on optical media (such as CD-ROM and DVD), and other media. UDF has several advantages over the ISO 9660 file system used by standard CD-ROMs. UDF is designed to take advantage of packet writing, and has been accepted and approved as the industry standard by all the major players in compact disc storage, including Philips, Sony, and OSTA (the Optical Storage Technology Association).

[edit] References

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