Reliable, cheap and 12 speed (BASF CD Media)

Member Name: cjkace

Product:	BASF CD Media
Date:	20/05/01 (221 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, reliable and rated to 12 speed, jewel cased in boxes of ten

Disadvantages: None

I've owned a CD writer for over two years now, originally starting with a Freecom 2x 2x 24x, and have now upgraded to a TDK 12x 10x 32x writer with Burnproof technology. I also have used only the various versions of Ahead's Nero Burning Rom software.

Over this time I have used many different forms of CDR media, unbranded blanks, branded disks on a spool and individually packaged branded disks and I've noticed some things over this time.

Unbranded disks are on the whole unreliable, both at the time of writing and later when you come to read the data off them. Some of my earliest disks have become un-readeable over time and I can only assume that this is because they are cheap.

Branded disks are always better on the whole but even these have problems I have noticed, especially those that come on a spool. It seems that the bottom few disks in the stack are also prone to failure, maybe due to the weight of the other disks that are pressed upon them.

So for the last twelve months I have opted for individually jewel cased branded disks, from a variety of manufacturers which include Ricoh, Fuji, Kodak and finally BASF. The reason that I originally bought some BASF disks was due to a special offer at Woolworths (buy 1 ten pack and get another free) so I bought over 100 disks, 50 of which I have now used, and have not suffered any failures and the disks are still readable, even those that are over six months old.

The disks themselves are well packaged in the familiar plastic flip case, with a bright red label, that when reversed allows you to list the data or tracks. The actual disk has a silver underside, and a rough topside for writing on with permanent ink pens (I use pens that are sold for the purpose of marking laundry and they work very well). The CDR's are rated upto 12 speed, hold over 650MB of data (they can be over burnt with confidence) and I have used eight today at this speed with no ill effects.


The offer at Woolworths is now over but boxes of ten CDRs can be bought for around eight pounds from many high street stores. After trying quite a few brands of various price ranges, I have to say that I will be using BASF while ever they are available.

Summary: