March 30, 2001

CD-R and CD-RW, what's the difference and why would I be interested anyway? First, let me say that I think anyone who is purchasing a new computer or is planning on keeping their top of the line present computer should consider a re-writeable CD-ROM drive for several reasons.

If you want to make a copy of a data or audio CD it's a piece of cake. Backing up data is convenient due to the capacity of the CD's versus ZIP. NOTE: It is not a very good idea to do your data backups to floppy disks for several reasons. First, floppies are small and don't hold much data in today's standards, in fact, many pictures, etc. won't even fit on a floppy. Second, floppy media are not reliable. While in the real world, things seem to last somewhat longer, the guidelines for media life expectance are as follows: 1 year, yes that's 12 months for floppy disks, 25 years for ZIP disks, and 100 years for CD's. Weather conditions here seem to also have an adverse affect on floppies.

Re-writeable drives are a great idea but there are a lot of little quirks and as long as you know about them and work around them, everything's fine. It used to be that you could either purchase a drive which only made CD-R discs (you can only write once and then the disc is pau, although, if you only put 100 megabytes on it you can continue to write to it again and again until it is full) and also drives which also write to CD-RW discs (these discs can be re-written to like a ZIP or hard drive). Today, most drives write to both types of discs. CD-R discs are able to be read on all CD-ROM drives and CD-RW can only be read on re-writeable drives, although the new software puts a program on the CD-RW discs when you format them which will install on a computer to make it able to read the discs even if it doesn't have a re-writeable drive. You Format CD-RW, and according to your drive and the disc rating, this process can take up to an hour. The CD-R discs just copy stuff as they go so they don't need to be formatted.

As with a lot of other computer stuff, don't let the numbers rule your decisions. Right now there are two different types of media, 74 minute, 650 megabyte and 80 minute 700 megabyte. This whole media thing is a subject within itself and I'm not going to go into it all, I just want everyone to have a few facts. With both media, you have the same problem as with hard drive ratings, expect after all is said and done the actual capacity is about 100 megabytes less than stated. You also can not get more data on an 80 minute than on a 74 minute. Again if you go to the web sites of the manufacturers and get into the technical stuff, most all the manufacturers do not recommend using the 80 minute data and if you contact the tech support people they will tell you not to use it, but, if you buy a new computer with a drive installed, or purchase a drive, many times they come with the 80 minute discs. Go figure! Click here for correspondence I had with the tech support people at Plextor.

There are also differences in media from one manufacturer to another. When you make CD-R disks, for instance, you duplicate an audio CD, it may work fine on your computer but have the hiccups on your car player. Sometimes just changing the brand of CD will correct the problem. I don't really think there is that much difference between manufacturers and I haven't noticed any problems. The biggest difference in the media is the media's recording speed. Again here you have to watch out, especially with the CD-RW discs because the newer faster media will not work with the slower drives. The drives are rated with numbers like 12x/10x/32x. The first number is the CD-R recording speed supported. CD-R speed is not as critical as CD-RW as far as the media working. Costco has spindles of fast CD-R discs which when on sale are sometimes less then 50 cents each. CD-RW on sale are now down to about one dollar.

Again get the 74 minute variety and the correct speed. Drive considerations are really important. As time goes on, more of the manufacturers are starting to have their drives support burn proof technology. To keep things simple, when making CD's it's best to let the computer do only that. The drives and software require a constant flow of data to the CD so if you're browsing the Internet and something's loading, it may screw up the CD. Drives like the Plextor are setup to keep that from happening. CD's make good Christmas tree ornaments when you get packet errors writing to them. Also some of the older drives have quirks formatting CD-RW discs. Best to format a couple of discs, then wait till the next time the computer is on to do two more.

The only other piece of information I'd like to pass along is about the software to make CD's. There is a software program called DirectCD which actually moves data to and from the discs. You shouldn't use DOS because the file format of the discs is not DOS so sometimes things get a little tricky. You don't really want to use batch files to access CD's. For CD-R disks you use a program called Easy CD Creator. There are other programs you can get but all drives have this Adaptec program bundled with the drives so it's best to use it. You also want to keep the software and also the drive firmware updated.

May 17, 2004 Update: Now that DVD rewriteable drives are available and people are tending to have more files due to more pictures and music files, I am recommending you consider a DVD burner (click here for a December 31, 2004 discussion). They hold seven times as much data as CD's and are now the same price CD drives were at the time I originally wrote this discussion. I would also recommend everyone give some thought to an external hard drive for backups since their price is also very reasonable.

If you have any questions or comments, click