Hardware Dictionary

A Compact Disc (CD) is an optical disc used to store digital information.  Originally it was used by the audio recording industry to store uncompressed digital stereo audio, but was soon adopted by the computer industry as a standard to record and store data.

Standard CDs have a diameter of 120mm and can hold up to 700 MB of data (or 80 minutes of uncompressed audio at a 44.1Khz rate).

1. A large-capacity CD: an optical compact disc that can store a large quantity of video, audio, or other information.