Windows 7 Don't burn disks at slow speeds

stueycaster

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I used to burn disks at slow write speeds because people told me it worked better. I also used to have a lot of failures. Then I read this sticky thread at Club CDFreaks that advises against slow burn speeds. Since I started using "ImgBurn" and burning everything at "Automatic Write Speed" I haven't had a single failure. They also suggest using Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim disks.

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It really has been my experience that trying to burn disks at slow speeds messes them up. Also I really have never burned a bad disk since I started burning all my disks at "Automatic" with ImgBurn.

People in here keep suggesting that disks should be burned at the slowest speed possible. That never worked for me.
 
It still really depends on your hardware and the media used. The post even says for CD media that you should use 16-32x even though most modern drives allow 48-52x, so it's not applicable to CDs.

I used the same DVD media for years, a pale blue topped Datawrite Classic 8x DVD-R (G05) and then subsequently the 16x variant (FK1). The 8x discs always produced more consistent results at 4x, similarly the 16x discs did so when burned at 8x. That is just my experience using a few different burners yet using the same media, and I have burned literally 100s of these discs.

I pretty much stick to that rule now with DVDs, to burn at half the rated speed and rarely have had issues. I can definitely say that burning discs with a lot of small files (like an OS), that burning at max speed can sometimes cause read errors, even when re-reading the disc with the original burner. Also as was mentioned with CDs, that roughly half max speed is ideal. I can clearly remember my old Xbox1 struggled badly with any CD that was burned at more than 16x and point blank refused to read 40x or higher.

The reason burning slower is suggested is because most people default to max speed and they are more than likely using poor or average media. Burning at slower (not slowest) speeds does seem to rectify this problem in most cases.

Consoles were mentioned too and I think anyone that has burned a lot of games at various speeds will tell you that the drive sounds a hell of a lot more stressed when reading a disc that has been burned at max speed. Well at least that's what I have noticed. I've also found this with burning HD movies to a disc for playback in a PS3/360, that max speed burns are more prone to buffering, stuttering and out-of-sync issues.

I'd have loved to have seen actual proof of this theory in the post, like graphs from burns at various speeds, comparing bad burns, rates of error etc. Nice find anyway! :D
 
I think the advice to burn a disk a the slowest speed is reserved for burning .iso images to disk.
Specifically LiveCD's and OS installer disks.
I always burn at the highest speed and have never had a LiveCD or a OS installer fail.
A bad download is more likely to cause a problem. I always use the MD5 checksum to verify a good D/L.
 
How un-scientific can one be?

I have read for several years about the recommendation to record .iso discs at slow speed. Being the conservative thinker that I am, I have adopted the policy of letting NERO decide what speed to record files such as music and photograph files but cut the NERO default in half for .iso files. This avoids either extreme - fast or slow. Typically, NERO defaults to 16x for a DVD and I change that to 8x and a CD usually defaults to 48x which I change to 24x for an .iso. So far, this has seemed to be a satisfactory strategy - - - for me!
 
I think the people who manufacture the media do exhaustive research to determine what speed works best for their product. Then the disk tells the burner what speed it will work best at. That's why I leave everything set to automatic.

The Taiyo Yuden CD's I use have a maximum rating of 52x but they burn at about 32x. I have some Memorex DVD's that say their max is 16x and I am having trouble bringing it to mind but it seems they burn at about 12x. I have some Verbatim Double Layer DVD's that always burn at 2.4x which is their max.

I'm using an HP 1040i DVD Writer which is really made by Lite-On. I get consistently good burns.
 
I swear by Pioneer drives myself...always been reliable for me had my sata one for 3 years in current rig and not had issues yet, I think the main no-so-secret is to avoid bad brands and certain dyes, i usually buy 16x dvd-r's (Gen5 i think) that nero insists burning at 18x (Sign of good dye usually) which I allow it to do without issues, plus I thinks it's a good idea to defrag often to avoid cache issues.
 
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One other place to burn is at the slowest speed is when coping a damaged disk that you have polished out. I've done this several times on audio CDs .
Joe
 
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