1000 Times Written

[Mike890]

Dear sir/madam,

When a DVD+RW is written 1000 times and this disc is not writable anymore, will I then get a message from ImgBurn and what will it say? In other words how can I tell a DVD+RW is not writable anymore? Thanks in advance!

[LIGHTNING UK!]

There is no absolute end of life like that. It works until it doesn’t. At that point, you’ll get write errors or it won’t be readable (verify will fail).

[ThaCrip]

Like mentioned above you basically use it until it no longer works reliably as, to be safe, always allow the 'verify' part to complete after burning a re-writable disc.

 

while I can't say for sure, I would guesstimate quality re-writable media should last a rather long time like Verbatim as I got some Verbatim CD-RW (4x rated) and DVD+RW (2.4x rated), which both are pretty much new old stock, not all that long ago (the DVD+RW I think I got in 2019 and the CD-RW I got earlier this year) and I expect those will last me for the foreseeable future. the DVD+RW I got in probably 2019 have a '2002' date on the back of the jewel case, so I would guesstimate it's anywhere from 2002 to roughly mid-2000's.

but as the OP might already know... re-writable media is less reliable than regular write-once media.

p.s. in another post I made on these forums not all that long ago (i.e. https://forum.imgburn.com/topic/26639-imgburn-v2580-works-on-linux-mint-v20x-here-is-how/?do=findComment&comment=169001 ) I was using some old (I likely bought sometime in the 2000's, probably mid-2000's or so) Memorex CD-RW (10x rated) discs and you could see they were pretty much on their way out given the write/read was flaky.

 

[dbminter]

The manufacturers claim 1000 rewrites, but you won't even get to 100.

 

It will just fail at some point IF you're lucky.  What generally tends to happen is the write and Verify completes, but a DVD player won't be able to read part of it, but it's always at a different part.  The PC drive will still read it, but standalone DVD players are more picky.

[ThaCrip]

On 10/23/2022 at 8:14 PM, dbminter said:

What generally tends to happen is the write and Verify completes, but a DVD player won't be able to read part of it, but it's always at a different part.  The PC drive will still read it, but standalone DVD players are more picky.

 

I see. I assume they mainly fail early on home DVD players (as you mentioned "won't even get to 100 [re-writes]") where as with PC DVD burners they will go much longer?

I just wonder what one could reasonably expect from quality re-writable media in terms of how many writes on the PC use side of things. hopefully at least 100-200 writes.

Edited October 27, 2022 by ThaCrip

[dbminter]

I once did the empirical research.  I kept track of how many rewrites I got out of a Ritek 8x DVD+RW disc.  I got 20 to 30, actually,  Even less than the optimistic 100, and I was being generous.  Plus, a PC burner may continue writing to a disc even though it can't be properly read on a DVD player.  The PC drive may still read and write to it, but, in terms of practical use on a DVD player, it may have reached the end of its life even though it may still be viable on a PC drive.