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Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

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Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#21

Post by blue_pants »

ChrisGreenHeur wrote: post #14
tombert wrote: post #5

DVD-RWs always seemed like complete magic to me. I had no idea how they worked, or why they worked. I made and wiped DVD-RWs as a teenager dozens of times, because my dad got annoyed that I kept using up all his DVD-R's, so I bought like three DVD-RWs and used them for all my experiments. I don't think I got anywhere near the limits for any of them, as I don't remember getting any faults from them, but they were alwa…

[flagged]

Epoxy and brushes?

Doesn't it use a special metal layer, and the laser high-heats the spots to make them amorphous (to write) and then low-heats them to crystallize (to erase)?

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#22

Post by tjoff »

bsder wrote: post #4

IIRC, the issue was never how often the DVD-R/W could be rewritten. The issue was the fact that everybody assumed that the DVD-R/W discs had roughly the same lifetime as actual DVDs and that turned out to be woefully incorrect.

People did? I thought that was common knowledge, as it also was for CDs. Not only that, compatibility with players were much worse.

Though there were times were RW discs cost as much as normal ones, and some friends of mine defaulted to buying RW even for stuff that was write once. I didn't get that, but for them the ability to, maybe, reuse the disc outweighed any reliability issues.

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#23

Post by VorpalWay »

avidiax wrote: post #8
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a Pro edition license most things Windows does are a registry key away. The entire policy branch of the registry is designed to have configuration pushed down from the network like when and how to update, but you can also set all of those keys manually. (Also, no hacking is necessary to set up a Windows Pro install with a local account, just tell it you're going to domain join it.)

One hint for the wary: Don't delay feature updates for the maximum allowed in the group policy editor. I couldn't figure out why I was getting forced reboots for updates despite other policies requiring it to ask permission. Turns out that if the update hits the group policy maximum, it forces an update immediately, other policies be damned. So set it to the max - 14 days if you want some time to apply updates at you…

You could also use an OS that doesn't tend to have dodgy updates that brick your system, such as most Linux distro. Nor force you to update if you don't want to.

Funny how a large company like Microsoft can't figure out QA, but volunteer Linux distros with much less resources can.

(A lot of Windows specific software works in wine these days, Valve's investment into improving it for games have helped for applications too. Not everything, and if you are stuck with such software, yeah that sucks.)

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#24

Post by 15155 »

ChrisGreenHeur wrote: post #14
tombert wrote: post #5

DVD-RWs always seemed like complete magic to me. I had no idea how they worked, or why they worked. I made and wiped DVD-RWs as a teenager dozens of times, because my dad got annoyed that I kept using up all his DVD-R's, so I bought like three DVD-RWs and used them for all my experiments. I don't think I got anywhere near the limits for any of them, as I don't remember getting any faults from them, but they were alwa…

[flagged]

Or, you know, how the technology actually works: two different lasers and crystallization states.

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#25

Post by Dylan16807 »

tombert wrote: post #5

DVD-RWs always seemed like complete magic to me. I had no idea how they worked, or why they worked. I made and wiped DVD-RWs as a teenager dozens of times, because my dad got annoyed that I kept using up all his DVD-R's, so I bought like three DVD-RWs and used them for all my experiments. I don't think I got anywhere near the limits for any of them, as I don't remember getting any faults from them, but they were alwa…

I guess the drives just cost too much and so zip won until flash drives took over.

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#26

Post by s_dev »

ChrisGreenHeur wrote: post #14
tombert wrote: post #5

DVD-RWs always seemed like complete magic to me. I had no idea how they worked, or why they worked. I made and wiped DVD-RWs as a teenager dozens of times, because my dad got annoyed that I kept using up all his DVD-R's, so I bought like three DVD-RWs and used them for all my experiments. I don't think I got anywhere near the limits for any of them, as I don't remember getting any faults from them, but they were alwa…

[flagged]

This is a troll.

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#27

Post by dataflow »

grepfru_it wrote: post #6

>Windows Updates If you want to stop windows updates, make your internet connection a metered connection. Updates will only be allowed on-demand. The more you know!

I'm pretty sure I read that at some point they started still allowing updates on metered connections, just slower or more critical or something.

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#28

Post by thombat »

ChrisGreenHeur wrote: post #19
awesomeMilou wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't the epoxy run out at some point?

That's the amazing part, when making the holes the epoxy melts and drips down into the collection bucket that the brush uses

It comes years too late, but I finally understand the reliability problems I had with a DVD drive mounted on its side. If only I'd had your insight then, I could have taken the PC to a playground and burnt disks on the carousel.

Re: Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results

#30

Post by anal_reactor »

Really astounding dedication! And to be honest, I'm really surprised that DC Erase actually revived discs. Maybe the next step is to pick one disc, and keep using DC Erase, and see when it absolutely and totally fails?

When I was a kid I read that you can format DVD-RW in a way that makes Windows see it as a normal filesystem. The next step was "can you install a video game onto a disc?" and the answer was "nope, you cannot, at least not Lego Star Wars".

Also, there was a strange phenomenon that I'd love to see someone explain. I burned The Sims 2 onto CDs. The game worked. After some time the disc would fail at a file called voice1.package. I burned a second disc, which would again last some time, and then fail at the same exact file. I went through many discs, each one displaying the same behavior.

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