[G4] What's the difference between a "disc" and a "disk"

[Richard M. Kriss]

I have probab ly used the wrong word many times.  Check out the good
response from Apple at

What's the difference between a "disc" and a "disk"?
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302152>

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They're pronounced the same, but, technically speaking, there is a distinct
difference between a disc and a disk.

Discs

A disc refers to optical media, such as an audio CD, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM,
DVD-RAM, or DVD-Video disc. Some discs are read-only (ROM), others allow you
to burn content (write files) to the disc once (such as a CD-R or DVD-R,
unless you do a multisession burn), and some can be erased and rewritten
over many times (such as CD-RW, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM discs).

All discs are removable, meaning when you unmount or eject the disc from
your desktop or Finder, it physically comes out of your computer.

Disks

A disk refers to magnetic media, such as a floppy disk or the disk in your
computer's hard drive, an external hard drive, and even iPod. Disks are
always rewritable unless intentionally locked or write-protected. You can
easily partition a disk into several smaller volumes, too.

Although both discs and disks are circular, disks are usually sealed inside
a metal or plastic casing (often, a disk and its enclosing mechanism are
collectively known as a "hard drive").
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