Re: Please help with CD writer questions
You probably want to have a look at Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ,
which is not Linux oriented, but does have a lot of information about
the hardware.
It is at
http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/
timothy> 1. I read (on NetExpress) that the shelf life of CD-R media
timothy> is only like 5 years. Is this true? Doesn't this suck? And
timothy> that CD-RW media has a shelf life of 30 years. Does this
timothy> mean I have to get a CD-RW?
I think its the other way around CD-R lasts ~25 years, CD-RW ~5
years. But I really don't remember where I read that.
Aha. At the end of the FAQ there is the claim that CD-R have an
unrecorded shelf life of 5-10 years, and that once recorded the
estimated life is 75-100 years depending on whether you are using
"green" or "gold" blanks.
My impression is that most CD writers you can buy now will write both
type of CD.
timothy> 2. What is the deal with the buffer underflow thing? I read
timothy> (on Computers.com) that you should have a fast SCSI
timothy> interface, because if you cant feed the writer data fast
timothy> enough, the write will die. - Does this mean that all IDE
timothy> CD-Writers are useless? And what if you do get a SCSI
timothy> Writer, but are using an IDE hard disk? Wont you still be
timothy> stuck?
According to the FAQ above IDE writers are not much of a problem so
long as the writer has a reasonable size of buffer. And I suppose
it depends how you are going to use it. If you always make an image on
a spare partition before writing to the CD, problems are even less
likely. And you probably don't want to start writing while your
machine is heavily loaded with other processes.
I have an IDE CD writer (an HP CD-Writer+, 7200 series, 768K buffer)
that has worked without problems for me. But I don't use it heavily.
--
Gilbert Laycock email: gtl1@mcs.le.ac.uk
Maths and Computer Science, http://www.mcs.le.ac.uk/~glaycock
Leicester University phone: (+44) 116 252 3902
Reply to: