CD-R versus CD-RW

I have CDRW's here that have been reused over 50 times.
I think that kinda answers the question

All my ghost images, and my toolbox software are on CDRW's.
I had one go bad, but it was probably close to 200 rewrites.

 

They do seem a bit outdated...
My point was, even if the cost of a CDRW was 4 times more, you'd still save money. Sure, they do burn at slower speeds than CDR's, but you should easily get 20 or 30 burns, on the cheap ones, and more on the namebrand type. I use LG or Memorex.

 

I wish I had Reboot's luck. I've constantly had CD-RWs go bad when used over and over. I've used different brands but I never got more than 10 "rewrites" out of them before Nero reported that your CD-RW is "garbage ". Once I cured the problem on one bad CD-RW by doing a full erase on the CD-RW instead of a quick erase. Not sure if that's the answer to getting CD-RWs to last really long but I'm much too lazy to wait through a full erase.

So I permanently switched to CD-Rs for backups. To make my backups more "practical ", I actually save the ghost image to another PC's hard drive by transferring the file over my network. I only burn critical data to a CD-R.

 

Ah, the advantages of having more than one computer. I do full formats on the CDRW's, on whichever maching I'm NOT using for something else

 

Actually, I've got four PCs in the house if you include my girls' but I can't afford a second burner!

 

I partition my hard drive. My C is only programs and the OS. I have a few ilmages burned to CD. But I mostly keep two or three images about on another partition.

 

Only once since I got Drive Image have I had to do some actual hardware repair. It was no big deal. It allows me to be reckless, a bit!

 

Hi Christer,

Well here come my 2 cents I have my HD partitioned up into four segmants (thanks for the help with that Christer) and
my set up consists of C:\ OS mail and browsers. D:\ Programs, E: Storage, and F:
image backups(4 at a time) I use Nero 5.5 as my burning utility and about once a week I drop a the most current back up onto a CD-RW. I also have a
clean back up of HD just after format on a seperate CD-RW fully restorable with ATI if needed.

I have used the same CD-RW as many as ten times useing a FULL erase with Nero.
and have never had a write error yet. Full erase is the best way to go, over QUICK erase, as quick might leave reminants behinds and cause your burning program to then encounter errors. .

As far as cost I use the Memorex 700 MB CD-RW's and you can get those at Wal-Mart for about 5 to 6 dollars for a 5 pack. I feel that is cheap for the use I get out of them. And when I am out and about sometimes even if I dont need them I buy a few more at that price now I have over 200 CD-RW's stored waiting to be used .

Best regards,

~FIREDANCER~

 

Hi Christer,

My appologies as I did not read very close and you did say in the start of your thread
that you are indeed in Sweden .

Secondly I belive the price differance would be great as I buy mostly but not all 4X write speed disks as I really dont need any faster for what I use them for and that would create a big differance in cost as well. I do use larger write speed discs
for larger, more compressed files but not very often.

My previous post seems to be a bit off as I was not reading thouroughly <---- (hope I spelled that right) Anyways that would create a big differance as you kindly pointed out.

Regards,

~FIREDANCER~

 

I've been using CD-RW's as part of my backup routine every day (extra precaution). I've used Maxell, Imation and even Office Depot brand.

After the initial formating, I've used the quick erase every day. In the 2 plus years I've been doing this I've had the CD-RW's last through as many as 150 rewrites and more.

I've had the least problems with the Imation disks, the Office Depot disks only work in one of three burners.

The program I've been using is Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum.

 

Although the Office Depot disks are low cost I think it has more to do with the burner speed in this case, the two burners they don't work in are both old 4x burners whereas the one the work in is still old but it's 8x.

Anyhow the point was that you can re-use the disks hundreds of times with no degradation, when they fail it's sudden, just like a floppy disk.