Burning data DVD's... Speed?

[Dizaster]

I've finally filled up my 250gb external backup drive, and I want to make some more room on it again (can't afford a new backup drive right now).
I decided instead of deleting all the stuff off it I don't use or watch anymore, i'm just going to backup onto DVD.

My question is, what speed should I do it at?? I know that their is hardly EVER a problem with burning at maximum speed (16x in this cate),,, but i've heard that burning at a slower speed can make the data a little less prone to being damaged??

Does anyone know if this is true, or is it a complete waste of time??

I ask because some of the stuff i'm backing up took me forever to download, and some I won't be able to get back again... So i'm hoping to store it as solidly as possible...

Thanks in advance guys

[Kev]

I always buy Ritek 8x white printable discs and burn them at 6x, so each takes around 10 minutes or so.

I can burn faster but I find that gives the very best quality.

Also 250 gig is an awful lot to do in one go. If you have only one burner its best to give it a rest after every three or so to prevent it getting too hot.

Ideally you'd have dual burners so you can burn one in the top drive, then the next disc in the second drive to prevent overheating being a problem.

[Dizaster]

I always buy Ritek 8x white printable discs and burn them at 6x, so each takes around 10 minutes or so.

I can burn faster but I find that gives the very best quality.

Also 250 gig is an awful lot to do in one go. If you have only one burner its best to give it a rest after every three or so to prevent it getting too hot.

Ideally you'd have dual burners so you can burn one in the top drive, then the next disc in the second drive to prevent overheating being a problem.

Brilliant, I didn't even think of some of those issues...
We've only got one burner, but I didn't do to many at once.. Maybe about 6, but I had breaks in between while I was doing other things.. I'll keep that in mind for future sessions.
My laptop is getting a bit cluttered so I needed to transfer some to the External to speed it up a bit,,, so I just burnt backups of Heroes/Entourage/ Prison Break/Top Gear, and a couple of movies, which gave me back about 30 GIG which is more than enough.. My whole laptop hard drive is only 60gb.
I burnt at 8x, but it was still a tonne faster than I imagined, so when I get to burning some of my important stuff that I really can't afford to lose, i'll go down to 6x or even 4x if I have time.

Cheers champ!

[Kev]

I always buy Ritek 8x white printable discs and burn them at 6x, so each takes around 10 minutes or so.

I can burn faster but I find that gives the very best quality.

Also 250 gig is an awful lot to do in one go. If you have only one burner its best to give it a rest after every three or so to prevent it getting too hot.

Ideally you'd have dual burners so you can burn one in the top drive, then the next disc in the second drive to prevent overheating being a problem.

Brilliant, I didn't even think of some of those issues...
We've only got one burner, but I didn't do to many at once.. Maybe about 6, but I had breaks in between while I was doing other things.. I'll keep that in mind for future sessions.
My laptop is getting a bit cluttered so I needed to transfer some to the External to speed it up a bit,,, so I just burnt backups of Heroes/Entourage/ Prison Break/Top Gear, and a couple of movies, which gave me back about 30 GIG which is more than enough.. My whole laptop hard drive is only 60gb.
I burnt at 8x, but it was still a tonne faster than I imagined, so when I get to burning some of my important stuff that I really can't afford to lose, i'll go down to 6x or even 4x if I have time.

Cheers champ!

sounds weird but 6x actually burn better than 4x in my experience at least on my pc's. I have a main desktop pc with two rewriters, a laptop with one rewriter and two duplicators each with a further 3 rewriters installed so 9 burners in all. They all burn optimally at 6x, although I only use 8x times discs not 16x like you get nowadays.

The reason being the discs I use I have used without problem for the past couple years. I go through around 500 a month and usually won't have a single burn fail in the entire batch.

If you like collecting your own stuff I also recommend a printer with CD printing capabilities. I've got two and they really do a good job in making discs look professional.

[Master]

What about getting an external disk recorder which will save wearing out the one in your computer, I assume it will not harm the quality of the picture?