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