Which CD-Rs should you buy

Because of the continuous R&D and technological advancement, many options are available for you to buy different types of CDRs for different purposes. Selection purely depends upon your budget, importance of data to be recorded, expected use of CD, expected life of CDR and nature of use etc. As per my experience, I can say that low cost generic or store-brand CDs create more errors during access or recording. The difference of cost may allow you to loss some CDs but what about the time and efforts you wasted.

Generally, such errors are caused by substandard of manufacturing process and poor scratch-resistant coating. Some CDs are found disbalanced too that harm the costly disc recorders or CD/DVD publishers. In addition, the blame for poor performance generally comes to disc recorders or publishers and you may invest for replacing the existing recorder. You cannot imagine, how much you may lose incase the recorded data is corrupted. Therefore, do not try to save few dollars while buying CDs and always prefer the CDRs of standard makes like Taiyo Yuden, HHB CDR74 Gold, Memorex , JVC, RIVER, EVEREST, ACU-DISC and MPO etc.

If you use high-speed recording drive, the selected disc should support the recording speed. Almost all the discs are perfect for 4X but if you need 6X or 8X recording then chose the discs, which are specified for these speeds. Recently, I bought Memorex CDR. These are perfect even with 16X. ACU-DISC CDR80, MPO, EVEREST and RIVER brands are good enough up to 52x. TAIYO-YUDEN CDR80 delivers excellent results at 32x recording speed.

Selection of the disc also depends upon the labeling method. If your disc printer is ‘direct to disc print’ type, you must buy the discs with almost blank face. CDRs are available for Inkjet and thermal both types of disc recorders. For example, ACU-DISC CDR80 Silver/Silver is made especially for thermal printing while RIVER CDR80 Digital Audio White is Inject printable. If you are going to paste the info sticker over the CDRs, then writing on the face hardly matters.
If you do not need too specific storage, you may buy complete CDs spindle to save considerably. However, if the working environment is dusty, keep the spindle covered all the time. If the working environment contains high moisture or you are planning to ship the recorded CDrs through sea route, it would better to have Taiyo yuden watershield CDRs. Capacity is another aspect that plays important role in the selection of CD. Standard CDRs have 650-MB capacity but some brands offer 700-MB capacity CDRs also.

Therefore, options are more than sufficient. You do not need to compromise at any stage while buying CDRs. Which so ever CDRs of trusted brand you buy, it should be strictly according to your practical requirements.