How important is CD-RW?
This was an interesting question back in the early part of 2001, when CD-RW support was not present in all drives. All CD recorders made today support both CD-R and CD-RW media. However, the question is still of some academic interest, so the original answer follows. It depends on what you’re doing. CD-R media is incredibly cheap these days, so using CD-RW to burn a a test disc doesn’t make much sense unless you’re burning a *lot* of test discs. Besides, CD-RW discs aren’t readable on many older CD-ROM and audio CD players. The manual for Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3 says that CD-RW discs are “more cost effective for near-line data storage requirements than CD-R.” The definition of near-line storage puts it somewhere between online storage and offline storage. On the other hand, if you’re expecting to use packet writing to treat the disc as a big floppy, it may be useful. You should consider other forms of media for such purposes though, such as Jaz drives, which are faster and hold more,
(2004/06/20) This was an interesting question back in the early part of 2001, when CD-RW support was not present in all drives. All CD recorders made today support both CD-R and CD-RW media. However, the question is still of some academic interest, so the original answer follows. It depends on what you’re doing. CD-R media is incredibly cheap these days, so using CD-RW to burn a a test disc doesn’t make much sense unless you’re burning a *lot* of test discs. Besides, CD-RW discs aren’t readable on many older CD-ROM and audio CD players. The manual for Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3 says that CD-RW discs are “more cost effective for near-line data storage requirements than CD-R.” The definition of near-line storage puts it somewhere between online storage and offline storage. On the other hand, if you’re expecting to use packet writing to treat the disc as a big floppy, it may be useful. You should consider other forms of media for such purposes though, such as Jaz drives, which are faster a
It depends on what you’re doing. With the cost of CD-R discs dropping through the floor, there’s less of an incentive to burn a test disc first. At prices around US$1.00 per disc, the extra time needed to do two full burns isn’t worthwhile unless you’re really tight for money. Besides, CD-RW discs aren’t readable on many older CD-ROM and audio CD players. The manual for Easy CD Creator Deluxe says that CD-RW discs are “more cost effective for near-line data storage requirements than CD-R.” The definition of near-line storage puts it somewhere between online storage and offline storage. On the other hand, if you’re expecting to use packet writing to treat the disc as a big floppy, it may be useful. You should consider other forms of media for such purposes though, such as Jaz drives, which are faster and hold more, but are slightly harder to find readers for (but only slightly: CD-RW discs aren’t readable on all drives, and packet-written discs may not be readable under some operating s
It depends on what you’re doing. CD-R media is incredibly cheap these days, so using CD-RW to burn a a test disc doesn’t make much sense unless you’re burning a *lot* of test discs. Besides, CD-RW discs aren’t readable on many older CD-ROM and audio CD players. The manual for Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3 says that CD-RW discs are “more cost effective for near-line data storage requirements than CD-R.” The definition of near-line storage puts it somewhere between online storage and offline storage. On the other hand, if you’re expecting to use packet writing to treat the disc as a big floppy, it may be useful. You should consider other forms of media for such purposes though, such as Jaz drives, which are faster and hold more, but are slightly harder to find readers for (but only slightly: CD-RW discs aren’t readable on all drives, and packet-written discs may not be readable under some operating systems). Software developers who need to create test CDs frequently will find CD-RW invaluabl
