[Thunderbird]

I have about 80 Imation CD's that are rated for 1-4x burning. I just bought a 12x CDRW drive. I hate to use my fast drive at just 4x, so just for kicks, I tried to burn one of those CD's at 12x, and it worked. It burned in about five minutes, and from what I can tell, the CD works just fine.

Are there issues that I should be concerned about? I didn't think that it would even be able to burn the CD at that speed unless the media was rated for it.

[snodman]

YMMV but I have had luck burning disks rated 8x at 10x, even 4x at 8x. Audio is the most tricky, you may find errors trying to burn audio at 10x on a 4x rated CDR disk.

[iPaul UK]

"YMMV" !@£$??? ok..

Anyway, Yes you can burn at higher speeds, as you have found. But to be honest, it's asking for trouble. The CD's wont last as long, so will soon be riddled with errors. If you don't actually need your CD to be burn't in 5 minutes, Then it's never a bad idea to burn at a slower speed anyway, regardless of what speed rated blanks yours using.

[exa]

YMMV=your milage may vary...

[Misha]

I've tried burning 4x CDs at 8-12x... frequently they can't be read by the drive afterwards. It's not worth it, imo...

I have some 8x Imation that would become coasters when burned at 16x on my Yamaha 2100.
I found out quite by accident that my firmware was a few versions behind and that the newest version contained "fixes improving reliability on some types of media".
Unfortunately, Yamaha does not (yet) supply a Mac flasher, so I had to hook up my drive to a PC. May be interesting for some to know that I did it over FireWire and it worked just fine).
Back on my Mac, I found out that the imation disks now burned perfectly at 16x.
Of course, YMMV...

Blank CD-R and CD-RW discs have a code embedded into them that specifies the minimum and maximum write speeds for the disc, regardless of what the disc's label says in the jewel case. There is a freeware utility for PeeCee's that can read this info, along with a host of other neat info like place of manufacture, type of dye, etc. I forgot the name, I have it at work.

Anyway, some discs have no limits on write speed - meaning they'll work in any burner at any speed, even though the label may state otherwise. I have yet to encounter a data integrity problem by using too "slow" a disc in my 12x burner. On the flip side, some older HP CD-RW media did not state any speed limitations, yet was coded for a 2x max speed... which really sucks on a burner capable of 8x RW! I'm pretty sure it's the drive that is responsible for data being burned properly at high speed, not the media... the media is flaky anyway, go read the excellent thread on ManInTouch regarding how short-lived CD recordable media really is. It's quite surprising.

Using the utility I mentioned, I have checked various brands of CD-R's (Sony, Imation, HP, Verbatim, etc) and most have no limit on write speed - even though the label says "xx" max speed. CD-RW's, though, almost always have a limit! HP's newest CD-RW discs actually have a 4x-MINIMUM speed, making them unuseable in older CD-RW drives. Weird, huh?

YMMV, etc. :-)

Agree on the MacInTouch thread on CD qualities! Long reads, but you'll learn a lot, and save time/money on coasters...

Major thing I've learned after hundreds of burns is: Start with quality blank stock! If you buy the cheap priced junk...you'll waste your time and data to...junk results. *BURN SLOW!* I know, it sucks, sitting around waiting, but the integrity of the pits & lands will be much greater to what it was meant to be.

Physics 101: As the disk spins faster, the laser has to burst faster, which will not allow as much time for precise image (which begins to streak at higher speeds), so reliability goes out the window. What's the point of saving time...for more coasters?

USB can reliably do 4x MAX, but 2x is the safest. Even though you can get 6x, don't do it! Unless the data is unimportant, because they won't last longer than a couple years. You want precise copy? Suffer through the 1x...

Firewire is unfortunately...the same. Yea, data can move faster, but you can't change the physics of rotational speed and the laser pulse issue. Remember, these are consumer model burners...not the highest laser technology available! And of course, the blanks...everyones is better than the other brand. Right... I've been happy with Sony, Memorex, Maxell, and Verbatim. It's funny that I followed links from the MacInTouch article that led to independent links of Lab tests of blank CD's, which rated Mitsui Gold as some of the best you can buy. Well, I'm rebuilding an mp3 collection from several Mitsui Gold CD's I burned not 2 years ago, but they're developing bad spots already (fading).

Just be patient, don't hot-rod your burns, use quality blanks, and you'll have long lasting quality.
...Unless you think a shelf full of crap is cool? (Love yer PC too huh!)

;-P

I have used that PC only CDR Identifier to query several media type sand have quelled a great deal of info from the disks including the min/max write speeds and dye types. I use this information when making my decision on purchasing media types. I just wish some one would port that nice utility to the Mac. Any developers out their who would like to take up the challenge???? Any information available on how the CDR Identifier actually works? Maybe using that information I could write one like it in RealBasic or something.

[zigzag]

In light of the comments about doing slow burns no matter what, is there any real-world advantage to buying faster CD-RW drives? I'm planning my first purchase and was wondering about this.

Actually, the "slow burn" myth is just that - a myth. You don't get "better" burns with less errors. One company actually did testing and proved that faster burns were *more* accurate! The problem is not with the laser time & physical burn, the problem is often the connection method speed limits - for example, USB has limit of about 1000k/sec, and a CD burning at 4x needs 600k/sec continuous. 6x would need 900k/sec, which is almost guaranteed to create a coaster on USB, if it would work at all. The bus needs some headroom, hence the 4x-limit on most USB burners. Most other burners don't have this problem, because IDE, SCSI, and FireWire all have plenty of bandwidth and speeds capable of handling the 2,300k/sec rate needed for 16x burns (the fastest currently shipping).

I have a 12-8-32 burner, and have never had a problem burning at 12x speed. The only reason you should ever need to burn slower is if your source (either hard drive or another CD-ROM) can't supply the data fast enough to feed a fast (12x or 16x) burner. I encoutered this when trying to copy an audio CD recently, the source CD-ROM could only feed fast enough for an 8x burn. Yes, you can copy the source disc to the hard drive and then burn at 12x, but that takes twice as long... which defeats the purpose.

Which brings me back to my main point: the speed is not as important as the media quality. If your data is important, buy only name-brand media. Even then you need to be picky- read the MacInTouch thread and you'll see that even some "name-brand" media sucks! I believe one of the better rated was a Kodak Platinum something-or-other disc, which I haven't tried yet.

Finally, no recordable CD media will last "forever", unlike pressed CD's. Re-burn your important archived discs to fresh CD's every couple of years to be on the safe side, or you could get a nasty surprise some day! Read the MacInTouch thread for some first-hand examples of this.


HTH,

-sklb :-)

[Thunderbird]

Do you have the link to that thread on Macintouch?

http://www.macintouch.com/cdrfailure.html

enjoy!


-sklb :-)