What Is ISO 9660 and What Is It Used For?
The age of the CD and DVD is all but over. But one of the legacy technologies that evolved alongside the optical disc is still alive and kicking. The technology in question is the ISO 9660 file format.
Let’s discuss what ISO 9660 is used for and why it remains relevant despite the slow demise of its parent technology.
The History and Development of ISO 9660
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ratified the ISO 9660 file system in the early 1980s. The driving force behind its “standardization” was a need for a file system format that was compatible and interchangeable across operating systems.
The format was originally developed as a cooperative effort by stakeholders in the then-burgeoning CD-ROM industry. Although optical disc usage is fading, the file system is still widely used.
The Main Features of ISO 9660
The features of ISO 9660 may seem limited. However, this is purely because of the format’s cross-platform compatibility requirement. Consequently, the list of ISO 9660 features only included those that were already native to each supported platform.
These include:
While there are no bells and whistles to ISO 9660, this simplicity is behind its success.
Limitations of ISO 9660
Anything simple by design will have to make compromises along the way. That there are limitations to ISO 9660 shouldn’t come as a surprise, then. However, what is surprising is that there are so few of them.
The two most notable limitations are:
The major drawbacks of ISO 9660 were addressed by the Universal Disk Format (UDF), which was developed to succeed ISO 9660.
Working With ISO Files
How you create, open, and manipulate ISO files depends on many factors. For example, older systems may require third-party applications, while newer systems often have native support for the format. ISO files can be burned onto discs or mounted as virtual discs. Computers with no optical driveneed a good external optical disc driveto read physical discs.
You may need to do a little research to find the solution that suits your requirements and your computer setup, but there are ways tocreate an ISO file on any operating system.
ISO 9660: The Ghost of Technology Past
It says much about the effectiveness of ISO 9660 that it is still relevant even as its parent technology dwindles.
It may have constraints, and it may be restricted, but ISO 9660 still stands firm as a ghost of technology’s past. A throwback to an era when optical discs were a pivotal technology.
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