Benefits of a Virtual Drive?

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Operaghost

[H]ard|Gawd
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I don't know much about virtualization, other than the idea behind it.

I recently bought some dvd backup software and I noticed on thier site they have a freeware virtual drive software.

What would be the benefits of using a virtual drive? I don't do much on my computer other than rip/burn dvd's, surf, listen to music and play games. Sometimes I stream audio from it as a media server but not often.

Would setting up a virtual drive be beneficial for me in any means?
 
well, do you handle iso files alot? instead of burning programs to discs then loading them up that way, just mount the iso file to the virtual drive and install from there
 
Forgive me of my ignorance but I don't see how this would be any different than copying the ISO to my hard disk?

I'm obviously not that experienced with ripping/burning. I'm just getting into it so you might have to dumb down your explanation ;)

Thanks for your time and input!
 
A virtual optical device driver (aka a virtual CD or DVD drive) has absolutely nothing to do with virtualization in terms of things like VirtualPC, VMWare, VirtualBox, etc. They're two entirely different concepts. There is one instance that might be prompting the question, however: with a virtual machine, you can use a disc image (ISO, BIN/CUE, etc) on the hard drive to actually install the guest OS inside the virtual machine, so in that one singular respect the virtualization software is "mounting" the disc image, but it's just for exclusive use of the VM and not the host OS itself.

A virtual optical device driver simply allows you to "mount" an ISO or some other form of media image (BIN/CUE, ISO, that sort of thing) instead of needing to have the physical media (the CD or DVD) in a physical optical drive spinning up or down, etc. Saves wear and tear on an optical drive since it's mechanical and will wear out over time.

Virtualization software like those mentioned above lets you run entire operating systems "in a window" if you wish - they're actually virtual machines, self-contained, running as individual applications inside the host OS - the virtual machines are guests running whatever OS you've happened to bother installing.

DaemonTools is the most most popular virtual optical drive (CD/DVD) software out there, has been for a long time. Alcohol 120% is a popular CD/DVD burning application which also has a virtual CD/DVD device driver that can be used just as DaemonTools can to "mount" disc images. There are several others also but those two tend to be the most popular.

Hope this helps...
 
Thanks, I think I have a better grasp on it now. I'm using AnyDVD and CloneDVD from Slysoft. Thier virtual drive software is called Virtual Clone Drive.

Now my question is this. I still don't see the difference as opposed to using the actual disc/optical drive.

I mean, either way I'm going to have to copy the ISO, etc from the real disc to the virtual one. So how will that save me wear and tear on the actual drive? Either way I have to rip the files from the original disc.

I only use one optical drive to copy/burn. So either way I have to burn from an image, whether its on a virtual drive or just on my HDD correct?

The program I'm using allows me to either rip the image files, or just clone the disc. (I'm assuming this writes temporary files to my HDD since I only have one optical drive)

Sorry if I'm not grasping the difference between writing to my HDD or a virtual drive.
 
Consider this:

Make an ISO, put it on your hard drive. The hard drive is roughly 40x faster at transferring massive amounts of data on average than even the fastest CD drive available, not to mention it's even faster in random access speed so you get that data located faster also.

Wear and tear on a physical gear driven device like an optical drive with lots of moving parts that continually grind on each other tends to ruin the device far faster than your typical hard drive will/would.

The primary benefit for most people when it comes to virtual CD/DVD drives is that they can put a ton of their favorite discs on a hard drive and that leaves the original physical media "safe" for storage someplace. Every time you physically manhandle an actual CD or DVD is just one more opportunity for shit to go wrong and... woops... there's a nasty scratch, that disc is ruined forever, time to buy another...

If that doesn't make the benefits of virtual CD/DVD drives pretty understandable, nothing else ever will. :)
 
Ok I see. So its more of a benefit of storing the files as opposed to using it only during burning sessions.

Got ya. Thanks man
 
Well, no, not more of a benefit just for keeping the original media safe, but I would agree that it's certainly more convenient in the long run if you have space on a hard drive for such things. Say you have a game that has several discs, and you chose not to do a "full" or "maximum" installation (old games basically, new ones fit all that content onto a single DVD) - swapping discs is a bit unwieldy for most folks, but with such virtual CD/DVD software you can make ISOs or some other image of each disc and "mount" all of them simultaneously if you wanted so your gameplay goes unencumbered by delays with the disc swaps.

So it's not a "Oh that's why" pointing to a specific single reason, it's the whole gamut of them thrown together. Protection of the original media, faster access to the media content, smoother gameplay or application performance, etc. It's the whole ball of wax...
 
Don't forget that if you have multiple systems you can access those ISO's from another computer. My two laptops don't even have CD drives installed (using the bay for additional batteries). Anytime I need to reinstall software or access a disk I just mount the ISO and install it over the network :)
 
Pretty much sums it up. I have a two year with a very destructive bent. Any disc he gets his hands on is pretty much trashed so I copy all my dvd's to ISOs and store them on my server. Really nice thing is My Movies will auto mount the iso using the virtual clone software so I don't even have to do anything.

Now if only I had enough space to actually store my HD-DVD and Blu-ray collection...
 
Thanks guys, I get it now. I might set this computer up as a server when I'm done building my new rig and use one on it to keep all my media backed up on. Thanks for the explanations.
 
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