Re: Speeds?

>      Can anyone tell me the difference between a 2X, 4X, 6X, and 8X cdroms?
> Is it the speed or quality etc.??? Obviously I assume the higher <8X>
> would be better in what way I don't know so tell me , because the # is
> higher and so is the price...can anyone out there anywhere explain to me..? :

     There has been some discussion here, and what I'm about to tell you will
be disputed by others, but essentially:

     Data transfer is getting the info OFF the CD and INTO memory.  This is
affected not only by rotational speed, but by seek time of the head and also
internal caching within the CDs own circuitry.

     The original CDRoms had a data transfer rate of about  150k per second.
 The next wave, had a 300k data transfer rate, hence they were called 2x
drives.  Quad speed, or 4x CDRoms transfer data at around 600k.  Interestingly
enough, a hard drive has a transfer speed too.  Most are right around 1
Meg/second.  So, the 6x CDRoms are about as fast as Hard Drives.  8x drives
transfer data at about 1.2 Meg/second, and that puts them in the class with
the more modern faster Hard Drives.

     Hope that helps.  I know others dispute this, but from a technician's
standpoint, data transfer is the key to the speeds you're asking about.

                                           Shotgun 

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