Drew wrote:
Can you explain... does RW (CD and DVD) media scratch more easily? What
makes them not as dependable?

There's a whole lot of history on this. Briefly, the original CD-RW
media (supporting only 2x record) were quite reliable and remain so -
but of course they're impossible to find and hard to record these days
thanks to the 'need' for speed.

1-4x were not bad, 4x-10x (High Speed) were worse and Ultra Speed is
said to be worse still. (I only comment on what I know and I've never
written an Ultra Speed disc.) The problem is that they become forgetful
- a well-written disc develops errors over months of storage even if
unplayed and becomes unreadable (typically) in a year or two. Each erase
cycle makes its memory even worse. In my experience, even for test
purposes a High Speed disc becomes unusable after so few cycles that
it's not worth bothering to use it.

I wish that DVD erasables were better, but all indications are that they
are not. I frequently want to pull a short DVD for temporary use, but
Jerry's tests at Media Sciences and my limited experience say that they
are just as vulnerable as erasable CDs.

Mike
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http://www.mrichter.com/