Quality of cd-r cds matter?

[yak]

Not sure if I'm asking in the right forum but does the quality and brand name of cd-r cds matter?
I've purchased 100 SONY cd-r cds (supermass 700mb) at the wallmart, just to save few bucks. Now I'm wasting half of them. Everytime I pop one in to store some files, it gets screwed up and have to redo it again. So the question is, should I forget about buying 100 cd-r cds and stick with 50 cd-r cds? And what brand name should I trust? I don't want to find out later the info I stored in cd is corrupted and no longer recoverable since I deleted the original file in my HD.
Thank you for any input.

[TheJackal]

You could try burning the CDs slower, to see if speed is a factor.

I've burned some cheaper CDs at their rated speed, and still got errors on them, but at a slower speed, all was fine.

[bigandy]

I've found that there is a definite quality difference in the blank media world. I would have to say that TDK are my favorite. But I've also found Maxell too be quite good. And a spindle of Memorex I had wasn't too bad either.

And as with Jackal, with some of the cheaper ones, if you just write them at a slower speed, they seem to do fine.

[TwoRails]

My favorite is TDK also, but Sony is not a "cheap" brand. As mentioned above, speed can make a big different in recording results. Also, don't forget that not all brands of media will work in all makes of drives. TDK works good for me as I buy TDK drives, but I have used other brands sucessfully, including Sony.

Also, if your "storing" some file, you may want to consider get CD-RW media. Fill one up then transfer them to a CD-R if you want more permenent storage. It's a safer way of going instead of using multi-session CD-Rs.

TwoRails

[yak]

Thanks for the info, guys. Sony cds have max speed of 8, so I thought this was cheaper version than others I've seen. I'm storing alot of different things, such as picure files, movie files, application files, game patch files, and so on... Does it matter what kind of material I'm recording? Should I try to combine with same types of files?

[TwoRails]

If the max is only 8X, then it's just very old stock, but the quality should be OK, assuming it's compatible with your burner. Try burning at 6X if you can.

No, different file types to not make a difference.

TwoRails

[glc]

Are you having problems only with that media, or are other brands giving you problems too? You can test by buying or "borrowing" single blanks of other brands. Some system details would help.

I have a 24X TDK burner, which is actually a Lite-On, and have had no problems with Sony, Memorex, TDK, or Maxell media. I have had issues with cheap offbrand stuff though.

[Redfallon]

Alot of the blank cd's are all made by a couple of mfr's and rebadged and sold as the "name" brands... try researching on google as it's been some time since I looked into this issue and do not remember most of it. I was surprised how many of the different brands all came from the same source...

[Jaggannath]

Yup, I'm with Redfallon. I used to buy brand names, until I realised this was going on, but I prefer using TDK. I have a 52x writer, and they work excellently. I bought them as a 150-pk spindle.
Have you considered just buying another hard-drive and dumping it all onto that?? In Australia I can buy 40 GB HD for about $100, and they offer much more memory than the equivalent purchase price of CD's