Going CD-RW

David Dorn guides you through the theory and process of choosing and using a CD Writer

Floppies are dead - have been for a long time. The new removeable medium is the CD-R or CD-RW. Based on CD technology, the recordable and re-writeable CD gives you the chance to save large files that wouldn't fit onto a floppy for use elsewhere - 700MB vs 1.44MB? It's a no-brainer. You can create your own compilation albums, missing out naff tracks from CDs, or just putting the best ever tracks from Tom Jones together on one disc (OK, so a floppy would do for that). Or, indeed, you could get round to doing those backups you keep promising yourself you'll do onto a less labour-intensive medium. In short, you need a CD re-writer.

CDs CD-R and CD-RW

Before we go any further, let's get all those abbreviations sorted, shall we? CD is Compact Disc - what you usually get your software on, and what you buy S Club 7 albums on. You can't change them, they're read-only.

CD-R is CD-Recordable. Generally speaking, they're blue on the underside, and you can record data or music to them, but you can only fill a CD-R once - and you can't erase any data from it.

CD-RW is CD- ReWritable - much like a CD-R, except that you can erase data, and you can overwrite and change its contents - think of it as a sort of mini-hard disk.

While CD-Rs can usually be listened to in recent audio CD players, CD-RWs don't always work - they use a different dye layer (the coloured surface that the laser beam imprints with the data) which a non multi-read capable CD mechanism may not recognise. The only way to find out whether a CD-RW disc will work in any kit is to try it - there are no hard and fast rules.

Choosing the right media.

So which of the media is right for which task? Well, CD really doesn't have a place here. You get what you get on it, and that's pretty much it. CD-R, though, is the medium of choice for making that compilation album, making a permanent copy of that directory with all the snaps from Aunt Agatha's 100th birthday to give to family members - the sort of thing where a medium that could be overwritten could cause the demise of something you'd like to keep (almost) forever.

CD-RW is more suited to storing data that changes over time - keeping backups, distributing large databases, sharing projects between machines. CD-RW is a good bet for making backups if you don't fancy shelling out for a tape drive - plus, a CD-RW unit has more uses. You can also format a CD-RW disc for what's called 'packet writing', which allows it to perform just like a floppy drive - handy for making on-the-fly copies of files you're working on. You can do this for CD-Rs as well - they're a little bit quicker to read from, but in order to read them on other drives you have to 'finalise' the disc, which adds a couple of minutes to the process. Also, although CD-Rs are cheaper than CD-RWs, you can get through a lot of CD-Rs while constantly re-using a CD-RW - and the price differential isn't that great, given that you can pick up CD-RW discs for a couple of quid or less.

How do I write a CD?

There are three major 'burning' packages - Easy CD Creator, Nero Burning ROM and Win-on-CD, each of which has its own packet writing utility. Adaptec Direct CD is one of the most widely used packet writing utilities, but it isn't supported by all drives. Nero Burning ROM comes with many drives, and is an easy to use utility, featuring drag and drop in its latest incarnation, as does Easy CD Creator, our preferred utility. Win-on-CD, from CE Quadrat, is, like the other two, handy and easy to use, but its packet writing utility is much slower to perform than Direct CD, which supports MMS, the emerging standard for CD writer control..

The process of 'burning' a CD is relatively straightforward, and in all the packages requires you to select the files and directories (or music tracks) that you want on the CD, organise them into the structure you require, and then transfer them to the medium. The only real decision you have to make is whether or not to leave a disc 'open' so you can add more to it, or to close it, so that it's ready for use in all players.

Picking the right drive

Most people will want the fastest drive they can get for their money - hence the numbers - 8x4x32 and 4x4x24 - a simple code that tells you the maximum speed the unit can write to CD-R, followed by CD-RW and, finally, its maximum CD read speed. For reference, 1x refers to 150k per second, so a 1x CD writer would take 74 minutes to fill a CD-R - plus two minutes to write the directory information. However, if the highest speed rated drive doesn't support the fastest software then it really doesn't count for much - except that an 8x drive ought to be substantially faster than a 2x drive.

It's also worthy of note that the actual CD-R and CD-RW disks you buy can have an effect on speed, especially with higher rated drives.

 

David Dorn