Learn CD burning speed

Have you ever wondered what these numbers mean when buying a CD burner? For example: 12x2x24 (3 numbers separated by an 'x') - a way to represent the write speed of a CD drive.

The word 'x' here represents 150Kbps data rate, and each number represents a different capability that the CD burner can perform. A CD-R drive has two functions: burning and reading CDs; and a CD-RW drive has three functions: write, overwrite (delete and write inserted data) and read.

When looking at the speed of the burner, the first number ("12" in the example above) refers to the speed at which the CD burner will write data on a CD-R disc. So in the above example, the CD burner will write data 12 times more than 150Kbps. The second number (the "2" number in the example above) refers to the speed that a CD burner achieves when overwriting data on a CD-RW disc. So in the above example, the CD drive will overwrite the data on the CD at twice the speed of 150Kbps.

Usually the second number (override speed) is lower than the first number (write speed), because the overwriting process is usually slower than the data writing process. The last number (the number '24' in the example above) refers to the speed at which the burner will read data from the CD. Therefore, in the above example, the CD burner will read data at a rate of 24 times 150Kbps.

CD-R drives can only be recorded once. Once the data is recorded, it cannot be deleted. The CD-RW drive is a drive that can write and then erase and overwrite. Most audio CD reader devices (especially older models) can only read CD-R discs, so when you want to record music, you should write to a CD-R disc. Meanwhile, CD-RW discs are often used to store data or to back up data.