How fast can you write with Imation 16x?

[Jman13]

I have a 100 spindle of Imation 16x CD-R discs, and I've still got about 55 discs left. I'm strongly considering buying a new drive to replace my Ricoh 6/4/20 drive. I'll probably end up getting a Lite-On 32/12/40 CD-RW drive, and so I'll want to record at the fastest speed possible. I'm just curious what speed people have been able to write with on these discs. When I bought them, very few drives above 16x were out, so they marked them as 16x, but I've heard that on some of them, when 24x drives really came out, they just slapped "24x" on the side of the 16x discs. Anyone have experience with this?

 

[Jman13]

Anyone? Someone has to have tried these above 16x.

 

[tritium4ever]

There ARE brands that simply rebadge old media as faster ones. For example, I purchased a 100 disc spindle of Gigastorage CDRs a while back (hey they were cheap), and what a mistake that was. They're rated for 16x, but they can only burn at 12x on my 24x10x40 Aopen drive. Newer Gigastorage discs that are rated for 24x only burn at 16x! If you want consistently fast burning then stick with the major brands...avoid Gigastorage at all costs!!!

Those Imation 16x discs should work fine at 16x, but don't expect anything more. Of course you can always disable the power calibration feature of your CD-RW and burn at 32x (when you buy it that is ) on any disc, but the chances of that disc being readable is marginal unless the disc is actually rated for 32x and comes from a decent manufacturer.

 

[Jman13]

Thanks. I ended up getting the Lite On 40x writer from Newegg. It'll probably be here early next week. I guess I'll just test my CDs at 16x, 24x, 32x, and 40x, and see how high they go with good burns!

Jman