[Ham-Computers] How Much Memory On A CD?

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

Duane,

Older CD-R's held 650 MB.  Newer ones hold 700 MB.  I think you are using 
Nero which I'm not familiar with as I've always used what started life as Adaptec 
Easy CD and is now called Roxio Easy Media.  But I have to assume as they 
stayed in business that Nero must share most of the gross characteristics.  I 
have forgotten which OS version did away with directory count limitations but in 
any case it was a long time ago and the CD-R spec has no such built-in 
limitations.  

My guess is that one of two things have happened.  Either you erased a bunch 
of files (which seems unlikely as you said it was a new CD) or you have a lot 
of small files which store inefficiently.

Remember that data on rotating media is typically stored in fixed length 
clusters.  A file that is one byte larger than an integral number of clusters 
takes up an additional cluster.  So on any cluster based drive storage system, the 
amount of data actually stored is always smaller than the drive space 
consumed.  JPEG, for example, is much less efficient at storing large amounts of data 
than multi-page TIFF because JPEG wastes space on every page whereas 
multi-page TIFF only wastes it on one page.

In a message dated 11/11/2005 10:34:31 PM Central Standard Time, 
dfischer at usol.com writes: 
> Hi All,     
>     
> What is the maximum storage on a regular single side CD used as a CD -R?    
>     
> Is there a built in limitation to the number of directories it may contain?  
>   
>     
> The reason I am asking is because I am showing insufficient disk space on a 
> new
> CD with only 338 Meg used.     
>     
> thank you.    
>     
> Duane W8DBF    

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