Independent from the quality of the media. Anyone else here tend to burn at a low speed instead of the maximum speed?
I have the idea that this tends to make the disks last longer (more effective writes onto the disk so as the disk decays, it remains readable for a longer time).

I've always burned below maximum speed.
When I got my first CD-RW (a Philips that burned at 2X) with some discs I need to use 1X in order to be successful.
Then a couple years later I upgraded it wiht a 16x LG , that I used at 12X because I read somewhere 12X was the maximum speed a disc could run, and I've kept to that until today.
With DVD burning the same thing, burning a full speed does not function well sometimes. I burn always a notch under the maximum.

I usually burn at a slower speed....

I went to Office Depot (where I should have gone in the first place) and got some TDK CD-R disks... made by Ritek... MUCH better....

Which do you guys think is more stable long-term CD-R or DVD-R?

I am currently going though and scanning a binder of CD-R disks I was originally going to throw out... starting to think these are worth keeping

long term CD/DVD mostly plagued by Disc-Rot although with differing rates.
Yeah its happened to me on early Linux distro: Mandrake DVD-R.

Reflective layer of optical disc apparently affected by exposure of lights,
I've read somewhere about storing the disc on dark-place may prolong the disc's life a bit.

I also always burn at lowest speed. I'd rather have the data last longer than save a couple of minutes in the burn process.

I also always generate MD5 sums for the files that I burn and manually verify them (i.e. independently of the burning program) afterwards. I'd love to find a CD burner that smoothly automates the process. (I think K3B for Linux does that, but of course that's not available for Windows.)

Can't say I have a lot of problems with this.
I use the cheapest I can buy (Platinum), there is the occasional coaster (1 in 30 I think), but that is also caused by my habit of burning extra tracks.
I do always burn at the lowest speed possible though, don't know if that makes any difference and I have just a couple of bogstandard cheap LG burners.
Also I keep my recordables in the dark.

The issue isn't whether the media burns (most does) but the error rates and how long the disks last. I'll bet if you actually scanned those disks it would be an eye opener.

ncmark wrote:

The issue isn't whether the media burns (most does) but the error rates and how long the disks last. I'll bet if you actually scanned those disks it would be an eye opener.

I know, but friends of my have 4/5 year old recordables that don't work anymore, while I have 10 year old that still work perfectly.