What is a BIN file?

A file with a .bin extension can be a disk image file, usually contains the binary data stored from an optical disc such as CD or DVD. A BIN file is a single file; containing the complete contents and structure; representing a data storage medium or device, such as a tape drive, hard drives, floppy disk, CD, DVD, BD, and key drive. The BIN files may be saved with other metadata files; describing the disc-related information.

BIN file format

Although the optical disc’s image saved with a .bin extension may be referred to as a disc image, usually created by copying the source medium sector-by-sector copy completely and thereby perfectly replicating the structure and the contents of a storage device. The real structure of the data inside the image is usually some file system. A few disk imaging software cut down unused file space from source media, or compress the disk they represent to reduce storage requirements. Though these are particularly referred to as archive files, they are not considered disk images.

BIN VS ISO

BIN format was typically developed to resolve the Audio CD’s archiving problem with ISO. Usually, this format can be used as an alternate for the same content that ISO supports and without any drawback. ISO is a simple disc image format, while BIN/CUE is a raw copy of a disc, including copy protection, sector by sector, tracklist, error correction, multi-track, and any system-specific information on the disc

Other BIN files

Here are other file types that use the .bin file extension.

References

See Also