CD writers or CD-Recordable drives (CD-R) are becoming increasingly popular for two major uses: archival storage and small-run CD authoring. Both require that the data be written reliably to the disk and that once there it will stay. Obviously the more you pay for something the better the unit you will get. But the main source of price differences is how quickly a unit can write to the CD.
Problems in writing to CD seem to be the result of an interaction between the quality of the media, the quality of the CD-R unit, and the software used. There are a variety of media. Some are not coated, and others, for a few dollars more, will have a high quality protective coating. It helps to obtain media certified for your CD-R unit, or at least designed to be used with a CD-R that runs at the speed yours does.
There is a variety of software for writing to CD. When you buy your CD-R, buy the software bundled with the unit. If not, at least make sure that it is designed to work with your unit. The computer that you have should be more than adequate to run the software, but exact specifications will depend on the individual software package. Keep in mind what you might be using the CD-R for, as different software packages do different things.
Most software will allow you to write to the CD in successive stages, which will mean that you won't require the massive hard drive space required to write it all in one hit. To write 650Mb of data you need 650Mb for the original data and the same again for the "pre-master" that is created before it is written to the CD. If you are going to do a run of CDs, a Jukebox (which automatically loads blank CDs into your unit) will be an invaluable aid.
- Roy Chambers