DVD-RAM ---CAN--- fail, but it seems to be about as fail safe as you are going to find today, the price is pretty good, more and more hardware is supporting it... DVD-RAM won't crash like an HDD, but it is not very often that HDDs crash and of course a DVD-RAM disk can be damaged as mentioned above.
Point is, both can have problems but if you take care of the disk, DVD-RAM is an OUTSTANDING/HIGHLY RELIABLE tool WITH potential weakness just like anything else available. Those who use DVD-RAM almost always feel it is a gold standard of sorts-- It seems like usually using it is all it takes to be convinced. Now if more people learn to use it :-)...
Point is, both can have problems but if you take care of the disk, DVD-RAM is an OUTSTANDING/HIGHLY RELIABLE tool WITH potential weakness just like anything else available. Those who use DVD-RAM almost always feel it is a gold standard of sorts-- It seems like usually using it is all it takes to be convinced. Now if more people learn to use it :-)...