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CDR's and CD-RW's
Okay, here's the scoop. You can put a special,
second CD rom drive in your computer also known as a CD Burner that
will allow you to copy whole CDs, music, or back up your data. It can work in
conjunction with your standard CD rom which acts as the "source" drive
and records to your CD burner "destination". All burners come with a
software program that makes the process very easy. The blank discs hold from 650
to 700 MB of data. There are two types of discs:
"CD-R"
A CD-R is a blank CD rom disc that can only be
recorded to once. Well actually you can continue to write to it
until it reaches it's capacity. After that it is finished, i.e.
full. This disc is formatted on the fly and pops up in the software as a split
window format allowing you to simply "drag" the data from the source
(hard drive or other location) to the destination which would be the CD-R drive.
Your data is held in sort of a temporary state until you have completed dragging
all the files that you want copied to the CD-R. Then you will "Burn"
or create the CD-R...usually a red button on the screen. The length of
the process depends on how fast your burner is, and the amount of data you are copying.
To give you an
idea, to burn a whole CD start to finish takes about 20 minutes. The benefit of
the CD-R is that it can be read in any "regular" CD rom drive on any
computer, as well as your home or car stereo.
Ideal for copying music, duplicating CD's (legally of course)
"CD-RW"
A CD-RW is a blank CD rom disc that can be written
to and re-written to many times over. It works just like another
drive on your computer. This type however must be formatted first before
it can be used. It takes from 60-90 minutes to do this, but after that you
basically have another, portable hard drive. This makes it very easy to drag and
drop data to and from the CD-RW disc and you can delete files from the
disc using it over thousands of times if you wish. The only bad thing about the
CD-RW is that it can only be read in another CD-RW drive or the newer
"Multi-Read" capacity regular CD-roms.
Ideal for backing up data, archiving photographs, or if you need extra space
to store data.
OTHER TERMS:
"BURN-PROOF"
Maintaining your CD writer's buffer is important for a successful copy. The buffer
is the place between your data source and your copying process. If the data
level in the buffer reaches zero, the dreaded "buffer under run"
error occurs and your copy is unsuccessful. This usually occurs because the data
is not being provided fast enough to the CD burner. Once the "burn"
process begins it can not stop (with most burners), so if there is a
hiccup in the source CD rom the burner just keeps on cruising...and the
"buffer under run" is born.
This is the downfall of most CD burners on the market today and the frustration
of most people using them. "Burn-Proof" technology was developed to
insure against this error. The copying process in temporarily halted until the
buffer is filled, eliminating errors and the creation CD coasters! Make sure
your CD Burner has built in "Burn Proof" technology.
"SPEED"
There are three different speeds to look for in a CD burner. Drives are listed
like this: 12x10x32. The first number 12x indicates what speed the drive
records on a CD-R disc (write only). The 10X indicates what speed
the drive records on a CDRW disc (write and rewrites many
times). The last number 32X indicates how fast the drive can
read a CD (CDR or CDRW).
"BUFFER"
Very important to copying (burning) to your CD. If you are
multi-tasking while your CD-RW is copying, the flow of data to your buffer
decreases. If your buffer ever decreases to empty, the data transfer
stalls, and your copy will be unsuccessful due to a buffer under run. So
if you plan on working on other applications while burning a CD, look for a CD-RW
with a larger buffer.
Hopefully we have provided you with a little more insight to the CD burner
process. Please feel free to stop by our store to discuss further and allow us
to put a new CD Burner in your machine!
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