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CDR and CD-RW Speed

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SRB442

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2001
Location
Western New York
I have been working with computers for a long time but I don't understand which speed cdr and cd-rw's to buy. I have a 20x10x40 yamaha and don't know which speed to buy or does it matter. I know this is a basic question but I don't get it. Can someone explain this so I understand it. I also have a couple of slower writers in my other machines and would like to buy just one speed media. Thanks Steve
 
I believe 1x = 600kb/s writing speed.

In order to get a successful burn @ 20x, you need a CD that is designed to accept a transfer of data at that speed.

If you use a slower speed, I would recommend burning at that speed (like using a 12x CD in a 20x burner, burn at 12x). Otherwise, you could get corrupted files.

This is how I see it, perhaps someone else can explain it better? :)

Hope this helps guide you a little better!
 
You can always buy media that's faster than what your burner is rated for. It will work just fine when you burn at a slower rate than what the media is rated for. If you have an 8x burner, you can still buy 32x CDR's. I just look for the sales. Also if you have a 32x burner, you can still buy, for instance, 16x media. Just make sure you burn at 16x or slower.
 
Don't bother if you have a 20x, especially the Yamahas those are nice. All the 32x+ drives use 'zone' writing, meaning they only write at their highest speed for a small portion of the disk. They start at (example) 16x, jump to 20x, then to 32x, etc. All 40x drives do is cut the last 32x section in half again and write at 40x for the last half. This is really rough explanation, but close enough.

The yamaha uses a system where it continually increases the speed up to the maximum. No breaks in the data that way either. You might see your burns go down by 30 seconds at most with a 40x.

Some CD-R resources:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/index.php3

http://www.cdrwcentral.com/index.php
 
Thanks for the information. I guess if I buy 20x cdr or cd-rw they would work in all my drives. I don't ever remember seeing where I could choose what speed to write at but then again I never looked. Steve
 
SRB442,


There is just one thing that has not been said : It is suggested that you buy the media that is rated for the same or just above your wrter max. speed, better than buying too overrated speed media. To give samples :

If you use 12x media in a 16x writer, since you have to burn at 12x, you are loosing performance.

If you use 16x or 20x media in a 16x writer (the recommended as per above rule), burns work OK and the media is best suited for your writing speed. <----- SUGGESTED

If you use 32x media in a 16x writer, it will still work, BUT the media characteristics are not *optimal* for 16x writing.

The idea behind is that you need a media surface that does some reaction to a laser beam in a given time interval, not over or underreaction...

In any case, I am just the messenger, and don't know for sure whether this is true, but at least mentioned in some places and FAQs around.

Regards
FTC
 
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