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There is an important difference between CD-Rs and CD-RWs for packet writing. While files can be created, copied, and deleted freely on CD-Rs, once a file is put on a CD-R, it will forever take up the space it uses, and even if it is deleted, it will not free up any physical space on the CD. CD-RWs can be used much more freely, as the deleting and creating files works almost just like a floppy drive.
These are the menu options DLA creates.
This is the screen for formatting a CD. This CD took 16 seconds to format (Quick format). After formatting, the CD had 629 MB of free space (this is a 700 MB CD). This extra space being taken up is required for the packet writing software to function.
Once a CD is formatted, files can be copied to and from the CD like a regular removable drive. You can enable compression (during the format process), which will make it so a lot more data can be stored on the CD. The program says it will create it to approximately a 2:1 ratio. However, once it is formatted, it says it is a 1.3:1 ratio, which was accurate. The free space on my CD seemed to fluctuate, and did not update after the CD was compressed (it still said 629 MB free). Only after I copied more data to it did it update (in the end I could copy 912 MB to the CD). This a problem if you want to use CD-Rs. If you make a mistake on the amount of free space you have, and try copying a file and it gets partially done but does not have enough space left to finish, that part of the file is stuck on the CD (but cannot be accessed). Therefore, your CD is filled, and you can not even put a text file on it. (However, after the CD was ejected and put back in, it added 4.68 MB to the total free space, so I could put small files on the CD-R). With a CD-RW, this problem doesn't exist since files can be freely deleted. It took 4 minutes and 27 seconds to copy 715 MB data onto a compressed CD. If you want to eject a CD, you MUST do it with the eject command on the computer (a DLA menu command when you right click your burner in Explorer). If you don't (if you manually eject it), it will most likely corrupt the CD and make any data on it unreadable, and will prevent future writing to it, which it did to one of my test CD-Rs which I used to test the eject function.
CD-Rs created with DLA can only be read on computers where DLA is installed on. If you want to read a computer without DLA installed, you will have to go through the "make compatible" process. This will make the CD compatible on other computers, but will prevent further writing to the CD. This can not be done with compressed CDs (you must have DLA installed to access the data on compress CDs). Next Page: Conclusion |
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