What is DMA mode?
DMA (Direct memory access) mode is a high performance mode for transferring data to and from devices, in particular, to CD and DVD burner devices. The burner devices can function in either DMA or PIO modes. DMA mode allows the processor to transfer large pieces of data with very little software overhead – therefore requiring low CPU utilization. In this mode, high speed burning can be performed in background with other programs running. PIO mode requires CPU processing for every few bytes sent to the device, so that CPU utilization becomes very high when trying to burn at high speeds.
