[franca]

Burning CDs can be a real drag. I've burned them at 12X, and it's like watching paint dry. Modern burners are much faster than that, running at speeds up to 52X.

But CD makers warn that high speeds can contribute to problems. They say (sometimes off the record) that slower speeds are more likely to work properly.

Personally, I hold my speeds to 16X. That's not very fast, but the results are good.

[websurfer]

I only have an 8x burner. Yes, I believe the cut doesn't go in as deep (or, it can't) with real fast burners. I personally don't mind waiting 20 minutes to burn a full cd, it's not that long compared to my old 2x burner!

[pyritechips]

Good point Franca!

My Lite-on is an older 40x12x48. But I buy cheapie blanks. One spindle were 32x. Nreo auto-detects this speed and burns at it. Don't force a CD to burn faster than its rating. Of all CD's I have burned, I have made one coaster. I tried to force that 32x to burn at 40x. Remember these numbers are maximums they are not necessarily the best.

[gotrootdude]

CDR Brands make a world of difference. I've had the best luck with Imation CDR's. K-Hypermedia is the worst, but can be had for around $2 per 200CDR's after rebates. What I do is buy the better brand, and the cheaper brands. I use the better brands for anything I want to keep longer than a few months, and use the cheaper brands just for transfering files across computers when I don't have access to a network or firewalls prevent the sharing of files across the network.

Also, my older HP 12X burner still burns with fewer errors than my lite-on, asus, opti-rite, and benq drives.

[JohnWill]

The reliability of burning varies widely, dependent on both the drive and the media. There is no hard and fast rule that says a particular speed will be better than another. I've burned a ton of CD's at various speeds, and I've yet to detect a pattern of failures, and there's only been a handful of failures at all.

[flavallee]

An 8X speed works good for me, and I find CD-R disks to be much less problematic than CD-RW disks.

Frank's Windows 95/98 Tips