Reliability of inexpensive CD-R's

Jeff Strouse · Post by **Jeff Strouse** » 28 Oct 2003 10:21 pm

How reliable are the inexpensive CD-R discs? To clear some hard drive space, I have some music files on my system I need to burn to a CD-R. Should I make 2 copies of each in case one of the discs go bad? Or, is the risk of losing the data about the same as a pre-recorded CD that you would buy in a music store? I guess the real question is...is a cheap CD-R like a cheap cassette tape, or does the digital medium take care of that? Are there better quality CD-R's to get, or are they all about the same?

...Now that I think about it, as far as data loss goes, the music is probably safer on a disc than on my hardrive anyway, right?

Tommy Mc · Post by **Tommy Mc** » 29 Oct 2003 5:17 pm

Jeff, My experience is limited to several brands: Imation, TDK, and Memorex. I ALWAYS buy on sale so after rebate cost is around 10 or 20 cents per disk. At that price, I figure I can afford to burn double copies, but have only once experienced problems with one disk deteriorating. One TDK lost half the tracks.....maybe disk deterioration, maybe physical damage in storage. A couple times I have had a problem accidently overburning multi-session disks, and ruining the disk.
I guess my advice is use the cheap disks, but make double copies of anything irreplaceable.

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 29 Oct 2003 7:49 pm

Jeff,
Watch the speed on the house brands,they are sometimes slow and your burner may not go that speed.Been there done that.....

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Bill Ford

Jeff Strouse · Post by **Jeff Strouse** » 2 Nov 2003 7:24 pm

Thanks!