I received some CD-RW (that’s Read/Write by the way) blank discs because I ran out of my standard CD-R’s and needed to burn some traditional audio CDs (yes, some people still do this). These happened to be Memorex CD-RWs.
I pop in the disc and no matter what burner program I use (Nero, WinAMP, etc.), the maximum write speed is 4x. I’m not kidding. 4x.
To give you an indication of how slow that is, if you push a full CD of music (traditional audio, not MP3 files), it takes close to 30 minutes for the job to complete.
I was informed that the discs were bought in a 50-pack bulk and they were dirt cheap. Well, yeah, now I know why they were so cheap. 4x max write? Jeez!
To note: CD-RW discs typically do have slower max-write speeds, but I was expecting 10x for a RW, not 4x. Yes, 10x is still dirt slow but at least tolerable (somewhat).
Earlier today I bought a 30-pack of good ol’ Memorex CD-Rs. Those have a max-write speed of 40x.
Much better. 
The moral of this story: Watch yourself when you buy those big 50-packs of optical media. If the maximum write speed is slow, all the savings are gone in wasted time waiting for the @#*&! disc to finish a write.
All the CD-RW I’ve been using were and are 4x, ALL of them. I didn’t know 10X RW disc even existed.
Yep. There’s 12x versions also (kinda pricey though).
On the flip side, burning at a slower speed (while truly a pain in the ass) provides better quality burning in the end.
This is especially true when it comes to DVD’s.
Slower = Best.
I have a Maxell 12X High Speed CD-RW and Verbatim 12X-24X UltraSpeed CD-RW dude check your hardware does your drive have at least a High Speed or Ultra Speed label on the compact disc rewritable logo?
by the way 12X and up to 24X aren’t pricey they about $2 each here in Canada and less for bundled or spindle pack
Dude, do you really think a ‘tech guy’ who writes for a ‘tech site’ wouldn’t have known the write speed of his own burner before wasting time to type the post up?
Seriously….
“… CD-RW (that’s Read/Write by the way)”. I thought it meant “Re-writeable”.
The technical and accurate name for CD-RW is Compact Disc ReWritable. I say it as read/write because people seem to understand that better. If I start explaining Compact Disc-Recordable as a WORM (Write Once Read Many) optical medium compared to CD-RW which isn’t, people get totally confused, so I stick with read/write.