Could you expand on that maximum speed issue? ps. I have the latest version of Nero.
Regardless of what the techie at your local computer store tells you (usually about some gibberish to do with "anti buffer-underrun technology") .. you
SHOULDNT burn your CDs at the maximum possible speed --
even if your discs are rated at the given speed or even better. This can really get complicated but a falsh-course in CD-technology (for the full scoop look around ay
http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/38 )
- When you buy your media it might say something like "Sony" or "Maxell" on the case and on the disc but Sony does
not make that disc. They just market it. The actual manufacturer may be something like "Ritek" or "CMC". Some are better than others.
- There are two types of errors associated with CD burning (and there are equivalent ones for DVD burning) but they are called C1 and C2 errors. Your local store-techie has never heard of these errors. C1 errors are typically weeded out fairly well by QC and by hardware error-correction so thats not much of a problem (also, even if you burn slower it wont really lower your C1-error rate). Now the C2 errors .... every drive attempts to deal with these errors in a different way and some are more sucessful than others however by burning fast you increase the number of C2 errors and thus decrease the chance of the drive correctly accounting for those errors. It's the C2 errors that you wanna avoid because (a) they lead to messed up data and (b) why burn crappy cds when you have a chance not to? Now relating to the media, certain manufacturers make media that is more prone to C1/C2s than others ... experience and reading will inform you of such trends but almost regardless of the media you've got you can avoid problems by burning slower.
- As a general guide, if you can cap yourself at 24X than you should be fine... typically AudioCDs can be burned faster without a problem as they dont take advantage of data recovery anyways. When burning (S)VCDs or MiniDVDs you'll want to definitely keep it to a 24X max
- Now specifically referring to making
proper 1:1 backups of protected games and such you'll want to burn real slow (approaching 4X/8X) as to allow the drive as much time to properly make the burns (wont get into "sheep" but the actual drives themselves are "rated" by certain characteristics and both the ASUS and Litey burners I've reccomended pass those "ratings"). The slower your burn the better your chances of making a proper backup.
Cheers (hope i didnt confuse you too much
)
As for internal/external... get an enclosure (~30USD) and internal drive so you have the option of going external anytime -- you buy a purely external drive odds are that it doesnt pass those "ratings" I talked about
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