How and Why To Burn A CD-ROM Disc
Workshop by Robert Evans 02/11/2003

• What is a CD-RW drive?
  • It is a drive that can read and write (RW) CD-ROM discs.
  • When data is transferred from the computer to the CD-RW drive, the drive uses a laser to burn the data onto a CD-R or CD-RW disc.
  • More info from PCWorld
• What is a CD-ROM disc?
  • Compact Disc
  • Plastic disc with a thin metallic coating on the top surface
  • The thin metallic coating on the top is the data so be careful!
  • CD-R disc can be written once
  • CD-RW disc can be written about 1000 times
• What is CD burning software?
  • Required software that transfers data from a computer hard drive, floppy drive, or CD/DVD drive, to the CD-RW drive
  • Popular software:
    • Roxio "Easy CD Creator"
    • Ahead Software "Nero Burn"
• Why use a CD-ROM disc instead of something like a floppy disk?
  • A floppy disk holds 1.44 MB, 1 - 2 year shelf life.
  • A CD-ROM disc holds 700 MB, 10 - 100 year shelf life.
  • Roughly 486.11 floppy disks can be placed on a CD.
  • Backup data, not the entire hard drive on CD
    • 80 GB HD == about 114 CDs
• What is the shelf life of a CD-ROM disc?
  • Depends on the dye used to make the disk.  Between 10 and 100 years.
  • Gold dye == over 100 years
  • Cyanine (appears green-ish) == initially 10 years, now 20 to 50 years
  • Blue dye == over 100 years
  • See:  http://cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_dye.shtml
  • Or cached copy.
• How much does a CD cost?
  • 50 for about $15.00 == $0.30 cents each
  • On sale, free  or $5.00 via rebate for 50 == $0.0 or $0.10 cents each
• How long does it take to burn a CD-ROM disc?
  • Depends on the speed of the CD-RW drive.
  • 1x = 150,000 bytes per second
  • 16x = about 2,400,000 bytes per second
  • 700 MB / 2,400,000 byte per second = 291.66 seconds or 4.86 minutes per 700 MB.  Factors such as computer speed and usage by other programs, hard drive speed, network availability, etc., will affect the actual speed.
• What can I put on a CD-ROM disc?
  • Data, documents, video, photos, coffee mugs
• What's next?
  • DVD holds about 4.7 gigabytes (billion bytes) per side
  • 1x = 1,385,000 bytes per second
  • 4x = 5,540,000 bytes per second
  • 700 MB / 5,540,000 bytes per second = 126.35 seconds or about 2 minutes per 700 MB.  Factors such as computer speed and usage by other programs, hard drive speed, network availability, etc., will affect the actual speed.
  • 10 DVD-R's for about $25.00, $2.50 each
  • See: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109167,00.asp

How To Burn a Data CD-ROM Disc

• Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 (a typical CD burning software package)
• A blank CD disc
• A single session CD (burn it once and "close" the CD so it can never be used again)
• A multi-session CD (write multiple "sessions" to a single disc -- you can read the last session and import the last session when burning a new session)
• File --> New CD --> Data CD
• Find the files you need to place on the CD and "Add Them"
• Click record and follow the prompts
• Whallah!  Eject the CD and you're done

References

• http://simplythebest.net/info/cdburninfo.html
• http://cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_dye.shtml
• http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/bguide/0,guid,1,page,2,00.asp
• http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109167,00.asp

Provided by Education IT, http://www.education.purdue.edu/support