Burn and safe your own CD with a CD-RW
JAKARTA (JP): Remember the old days when CorelDRAW! came in 16 floppy diskettes and Windows 95 came in 29 diskettes?
That was the time when software did not usually have any audio or video content. Can you imagine how many diskettes would be required to store the installation files of Microsoft Office 2000?
The diskette era ended not a very long time ago.
Luckily today we no longer see many software programs delivered in diskettes.
Today, most, if not all shrinkwrap software comes in CD-ROMs. Newer PCs even offer the option of booting directly from the CD- ROM drive, leaving the floppy diskette drive hardly used.
The proliferation of CD-ROM drives in personal computers was beyond our imagination six years ago. Today, it has become a standard hardware component of PCs and Macs.
In a couple of years time, we may have a CD-RW (CD-rewritable) drive as a standard feature in our PCs.
Even today, high-end home PCs such as the Pavilion 9850 from Hewlett-Packard come equipped with a CD-RW and a DVD drive. Such a configuration enables direct CD-to-CD copying.
However, the actual usefulness of a CD-RW does not really lie in its ability to create duplicates of your latest box-office VCD or chart-topping compact disc, but more in the ability to store your valuable data in a safe media.
In the past, we normally used a tape drive to produce backups for our files.
Today, tape drives are still sold and are still in use, but the CD-RWs are steadily biting into the their market share. One of the reasons CD-RWs are more popular today is they have become more affordable (US$150-$250).
Before we had the CD-RW, there was the CD-R.
The older drive could only burn the CD media once. Once you have written something on it, you cannot erase it or add more data.
Today, most of the drives -- also called burners -- are CD- RWs. So, using a different media, you can erase and rewrite on it, much like what you do to a diskette.
A CD-RW drive can also write a CD-R media, of course. Because you can use it more than once, the rewritable media also cost far more than its write-once counterpart.
Who makes the CD-RWs? The list is long, testifying to the growing popularity of CD-RW drives.
It includes Toshiba, Ricoh, Plextor, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsumi, Yamaha, Acer, Creative, Teac, Philips and even Iomega. With so many players in this sector, it is rather difficult to say which one makes the best product.
You will need to check the reviews on the Internet before deciding on any particular brand and model. CNET editors, for example, listed Ricoh MP9120A, Sony Digital Relay CRX10U-A2, Sony Spressa i.Link 12X/8X/32X CD RW, Plextor Plexwriter 12/10/32A and Teac CDW512E 12X/10X/32X CD-RW as the top five CD-RWs on the market.
The list changes all the time, of course, but they can give you some guidance. Remember, too, that the software that comes with the drive is more important than the specs such as the speed of burning and reading CDs.
The CD-RWs come in different models. You have the internal vs the external models. Internal CD-RWs are cheaper, and they are easier to set up -- especially the ones with IDE or EIDE connection to the system (they share the same connection with the hard disk).
The SCSI models will require a SCSI card, if your motherboard does not have it already, and adding a SCSI card still requires a hefty investment.
External models connect to the PC through the parallel port, external SCSI port and, of course, the USB port. If you have more than one PC and you want to be able to use your external CD-RW on each of them, your best bet will be an external USB model. Some external models come in sleek designs and have rechargeable batteries. They can also function as portable CD players.
The good news, too, is that the technology for burning CDs on your own CD-RW has improved quite a lot lately, so the chances of you having a spoiled CD are minimized.
Zatni Arbi