Chashub Loc: greenwood,in

Haven't seen this topic. When burning photos to a disc is it better to use a cd or a DVD?
Thanks,
Charlie

sarge69 Loc: Ft Myers, FL

CDs typically hold 700mega bytes

DVDs hold 4.7 Gigabytes

Sarge69

Dlevon Loc: New Jersey

Simply stated Sarge, well-done! I'm still surprised at some of the simple questions, yet it's easy to forget there's a lot of beginners here at UHH.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

It is better to use memory cards or thumb drives.. They don't need to be real fast so you get more bang for the buck. The slowest ones are still quicker than optical drives.

CDs and DVDs are super slow and generally a pain overall.

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

no brainer dvd

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

But much better for sending to clients than a card

l.d.p.

DVD by far...and the price is very low these days. Suggestion, when you store it, store it vertical or in a case. I used to store them stacked and later found out the ones on the bottom of the stack had cracked...so put a wooden
dowel (Lowes) through your DVD's/CD's and store them vertically. The thumb drive is a good idea, provided you don't lose it!! Also most professionals store their images on an external hard drive and simply store that drive when it gets full rather than the DVDs as in the past.

Mudshark Loc: Illinois

I don't think it makes any difference...you just have to be able to fit your files on the disk. Being anal...I tend to burn my disk at much slower speeds because I think...."think"....they will have fewer errors...probably a waste of time...who knows...

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

Actually this goes back to the days before buffer under run protection when you relied on the computers RAM, and the poor quality of CDs.

I had the first HP CD burner and had a separate PC just for it because of the problems.

Thant said I have just done two wedding videos and always burn at the lowest speed and with confirmtion

RichieC Loc: Adirondacks

Thumb Drives are handy- but they fail and are erasable, they seem to go through the wash. LOL

If you want to archive your images, burn Taiyo Yuden... they win all the technical reviews, all cd/dvds are NOT created equal- some are horrible! They will be the ones you see on sale. Use them to send or transfer data- not store it. Burning at a lower speed indeed does give a more accurate burn. Also don't get close to the max capacity, has less to do with the media and more to do with the radius the head is working at on the disk.

If you order them in bulk and by mail they don't cost much more. Nobody will carry them local anyways. Go ahead and research the brand.

http://www.supermediastore.com/brand/show/taiyo+yuden?utm_campaign=cj%20-%20TextLink&utm_medium=aff&utm_source=cj

RDH

It depends entirely on what you want to do. If you want to give someone a few files CDs are fine. If you have too much data to fit on a CD then a DVD. If you are going to your camera club and you have five or six photos you want to show use a thumb drive. It is really a matter of common sense.

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Neither one for archive (long term). Please note that Windows 8 and the prevalence of Tablet computing foretell the demise of CD/DVD burners. Windows 8 has no support any longer for burning CD/DVD disks, so you need to provide your own aftermarket or thirdparty support. I don't think that is changing IF they do roll out a FIX or Service Pack (August is current EOR). I suspect Windows 8 will still drop support for Optical media from within the base Operating System.

UltraBooks, tablets, pads and smart phones seem to preclude the ongoing development in Optical media. This due to the lack of space for internal drives, and the necessity to purchase an extra external device... USB Optical External drives.

And I full well know I will be branded as "Chicken Little", but I am moving foward in both my classes for Community Education and my own purposes as if Optical media will not be with us much longer.

I'd rather educate and transfer people to more reliable media, than be responsible for teaching them to use a media which is currently decaying, for their long term archival backups.

Educate yourselves further on this search:

CD ROT

Or this search:

DVD ROT

Use Yahoo, Google or other. Results will be the same.

YES.. MD... I know you're out there, grimacing.

RDH

You will note that I did not recommend CDs or DVDs for backup or long term storage. Given the number of third party CD/DVD devices available I think you may be more than a bit alarmist. And I think it is only low end PCs and notebooks which do not come with CD/DVD drives.

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Sir, I did not cite you as inferring backups and long term storage on CD/DVD disks. In fact I think your post was quite concise and appropriate. You did not raise my response. My point is about gearing up for the demise of Optical media. I still use Optical, for temporary use like transfer and delivery of files to another source. However, the handwriting is on the wall.

And, I am watching the market and OEM vendor are starting to diminish the use of Burners in computers of all price ranges. It's just too much of an opportunity to reduce the bottom line.

If I appear a bit alarmist, it just doesn't seem good business practice to continue to buy components for a disappearing and high risk media.

Nope... just bought an $800 Sony Vaio..... No burner, Windows 8 and no support in the system to use my external burner other than read disks with the external.

Alarmist or not... I'd rather not represent a local thriving Community College as an educator, and having 25 years in PC consulting, be found representing a product that is likely to lose data, and furthermore, not have a way to read in another 5 years.

Your data is your data and you can save it or transfer it how you like. Go ahead and risk it.

I wonder how many people on this site are trusting that they are going to be able to get their photos from Optical disks in another 5-8 years.

The signals are there for people who look for them, and the risk is only reduced by transferring the media while it is readable. You obviously are not going to do the research, but on speck of that decay where you can see a pinhole of light through the disk, makes the whole disk unreadable. Nothing can be recovered.

So, I guess I can add you to my list of people who choose to "Chicken Little" me. I don't imagine you will ever do business with me, but my business thrives in a large part on people who avoid the signals, and who opt for the lazy way out...but there is no lazy way out for data recovery, except 3 redundant systems and stop using optical.... It's the most risky of the lot.

Again, I would rather that my information would be solid and trustworthy for my students and clients. I will continue to pick up new clients, as I have for 25 years by word of mouth and good service.

Good luck to you sir. Your post encourages me to be proud to be an alarmist and enlightening educator, with regard to my service to others.

RDH

As a matter of fact I gave up on CDs for back up and file storage eight or ten years ago. Far too expensive and undependable. What surprises me is the faith people have in CDs and thumb drives. Hard drives will fail, but so will the alternatives and more frequently. For my part I use four internal drives in external enclosures, one as a work drive, three for backup. They run cooler that way and are easily accessible. The enclosures have large fans and drives run cool. My gripe with external drives is they have insufficient cooling and run hot, not good for a hard drive.