DVD recordable 8x

Beside price, is there any disadvantage to choose DVD recordable 8x over CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo 24x/24x/24x/8x, if I may never need the recordable function? Speed?

 

I say take the DVD recorder. I was burning my Thinkpad Recovery discs, and it took me 7 CDs before I realized I could have fit it all onto two DVDs. So now I'm stuck with 8 discs just for recovery. The DVD recorder will probably be more useful than you think.

 

Thanks for pointing out this--it didn't occur to me. Is the DVD recordable slower?

 

at 8X speed you can burn a dvd in under 10 minutes.

 

CD speed and DVD speed are two different things.

The DVD standard transfer rate is 1.32 MB/s @ 1x.
The CD standard transfer rate is 150KB/s @ 1x.

A "1x" DVD speed rate equals to a "9x" CD speed.

So 8x DVD speed = 72x CD speed.

 

Thanks both for the good news! Lenovo now offers only $10 more to get DVD recordable, so I guess it's good to choose.

 

That in my experience would be wrong. Most laptop drives burn a full DVD in the 12-14 minute range which would be the case with my UJ-850.

Laptop drives are made with size and power consumption in mind. They only burn the very outer ring of the DVD at 8x. It's a bit misleading to call it 8x. A desktop drive usually starts in the 5-6x range and quickly ramps up to 8x or faster burning a much larger portion of the disc at full speed. It gives much faster burn times.

The fastest laptop drive I've ever seen was the NEC-ND6500 which clocked in around 10.5 minutes for a full burn. That was using the very best Taiyo Yuden discs.