Why would one want to include the original RAW inside of a DNG?

Question

I'm interested in starting to convert my photos to DNG instead of NEF, because it allows Lightroom to embed it's metadata into the actual files, and because the "fast indexing" feature makes significant performance gains on my hardware.While considering this, I noticed that Lightroom has the option to embed the source RAW into the DNG it creates (if using DNG mode), which puzzles me. It would double the size of the file, and (in theory) the NEF and the DNG contain the same information. Is there some kind of information loss or disadvantage (other than requiring the conversion step in one's workflow) that occurs when being converted into DNG?

Answer 1

Basically, it is just another copy of the raw data so why do it. Switching to DNGs is probably a good idea for reasons of longevity....eventually Nikon or Canon raws might not be so easy to open....though most pros archive in TIF or PSD.