Disc Burning Time

[scotman]

Hi all

Just a quick question.

I make a weekly backup of one of my data drives.

I do this by using WinZip to make a single archive file of the entire disc and then burn that to DVD.
My confusion comes from the fact that, although very few files have changed significantly and I do not download much, the time taken to burn is all over the place. One time it will be 20-25 minutes and like today when it took about 43. It will be something else next week.

I am running XP Home + SP3 and have 1GB RAM
Burn is done with Nero Express and nothing else is ever running at the time.

Any thought or comments

Thanks

[VHG]

Have you compared the size of the WinZip files?

Are they all roughly the same size, or are they of different sizes?

Also note that a DVD can be burned at different speeds (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, and so on) so it may be your DVD is burned at different speeds each time.

A program like Nero will "test" the DVD burning speed and then use that, but maybe it is setting it at a different burn speed each time.

Note as the end user you can also set the burn speed at burn time.

[AlBags]

If you check in Nero .. and do a Multi-Session burn, you can tell Nero to just replace new/changed files. You would not use Winzip then tho.
However, Nero buffers small files before burning for quality/safety.
That may be the reason.
Try always rebooting before burning the file(s)