Confused by the different types of CDs

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raycer

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Hello

I'm looking for the best CDs to archive my scanned slides and negatives but I'm confused by all the different types and speeds. I know that CD-R can only be written to once and that is fine for what I want. But what is the difference between - and + and what does Datalife mean and AZO? On the Amazon site what looks like the same thing: a spindle of 50 Verbatim CDR are advertised at three different prices £12.70, £9.99 and £4.59 What is the difference? Someone has recommended Verbatim CD-R to me but I read in the Amazon customer review that they are now made in India and of lower quality than they used to be. Can anyone give me some pointers? Not sure if I'm in the best forum for this.

Regards
 
They look the same. If you want to "burn" music to a CD, you must use, only a CD-R. Or you may copy a game from one CD-R to another CD-R (your computer requires a CD-burner to do this. After burning your CD-R either for music or games, that disk can never be used again for anything else. Where a CD-RW is rewriteable, meaning whatever data you place on that disk can later be erased or the disk reformatted so that it may be used again for something else. The CD-RW is primarily used only for data files.

CD-R is for writing once and reading many times, whereas CD-RW is for writing upto 1000 times and reading many times. CD-R's are compatable with many devices including cd players and dvd players if properly burned. CD-RW's will usually only work with computers regardless of the format of the final CD (SVCD, VCD, Data or Audio CD) although some cd and dvd players do support them it is rare.

Another difference is that a CD-RW costs almost five times that of a CD-R.







And as for being made in India China Etc: well the answer is it aint British:D
 
If you have a DVD-RW optical drive you'd be better off backing up your data to DVD-R's.

4.2Gb or 8Gb on a single disc as against 700Mb on a single CD.

Having said that, CD-R's are much more reliable than DVD-R's.

In my experience most brand name CD-R's are good, I've very rarely bought a bad batch, except in the early days about 10 years ago when unbranded CD-R's were not very good.

I have had quite a few of those cheapies turn a strange shade of brown and become unreliable over that time.

Generally speaking though, all brand name CD-R's are reliable, regardless of origin of manufacture, and all name brand 4.7Gb DVD-R's (both -R & +R, although -R's are best) are good.
 
In answer to your question

The Verbatims are the best when it comes to recording your precious data and keeping it..

The DVD-R's are the way to go for storing lots of data on one disc but like Flopp's has said CD-R's are more reliable in the long run..

As for the Verbatims being manufactured in India, yes reliability has become a factor and quality of dye has suffered, if you can get them go for Japanese Verbatims first and ones manufactured in Malaysia second the Indian manufactured are the worst of the bunch and I personally wouldn't touch em..

All the best..:thumb:
 
Hi

Many thanks for your replies. But how do I tell which Verbatims are made in India, Japan or Malaysia?

Regards
 
Go to SVP which apart from being an excellent place for buying blank CD's/DVDs etc but also give manufacturer info :nod:
 
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