WHY FLASH DRIVES ARE BETTER THAN CDR/RW FOR QUICK FILE SAVE*

*in my opinion - Systems Administrator, East Central Georgia Regional Library system

Format - Media (the CDs themselves) must be "matched" to the writer. For instance, if the CD writer is rated 10X, then the CDs must be rated at 10X or higher. (Flash drives are either 1.1 or 2.0 (USB) and it's hard to find one that won't work in most reasonably new USB ports - new meaning a 3-4 year old PC. Other than that, there's no "format" type to worry about.)

Processing power - Writing CDs take a lot of processing power. It takes time to burn files to CDs - computer time. If you only have 1 hour to work on a public computer, you won't want to sit still while your files write to the CD, so you'll probably continue to web surf, word process, or whatever, and then will run into problems when the machines begin to crash or slow down tremendously. Using a flash drive is so quick that it doesn't eat up a lot of processing power, freeing the computer power so you can maximize your computer use time.

Reliability - CDs are almost as easily damaged as floppy disks. Scratches, too much sun, smudges, dust, fingerprints - all of these can made a CD unreadable; even new ones, fresh out of the pack, may not work in the CD writer. (I can't tell you how many times I've needed to burn a CD and have had to throw away one out of every 4 simply because it wouldn't "read". And once you try using it the first time, if it won't read, forget it - it's a goner. Throw your $1.00 away for every CD you toss.) Flash drives are not indestructible; but they have been tested at extremes of cold and heat, high altitude, dampness, and STILL hold up for use. They're just hard to break!

Speed - accessing files from a CD is slower than from the hard drive AND from flash drives. Access from a flash drive is quick quick quick.

Portability - Burned CDs are ALMOST as finicky as floppy disks can be when shared among computers. In other words, you can burn it on one PC and take it to another CD player and it might - or might NOT - be readable. How frustrating will THAT be! especially if you have to "burn here" and want to "read there".

Even if you are able to burn a file at the library or in a computer lab - say you take it to school, or home with you to use there. You need to edit the file - and then save it again. What if you're at a computer that doesn't have a CD-R or CD-RW device? You can't save the file! What if you forgot to bring a blank CD with you to write TO? If your CD isn't read/write, or if the CD is a Writer but not a RE-writer, you probably won't be able to save it!   Flash drives are almost universally accepted and useable on most computers these days. USB ports - all that's required for a flash drive to work -  are much more commonly found than CD writers.

Software - There are as many kinds of CD-burning software as there are CD-R and CD-RW writers (almost). All have their little quirks; some are obviously better than others. BUT, none of them is perfect. Most require more "privileges" in the computer system than are commonly allowed on public computers.  Writing to a flash drive doesn't require ANY additional software - you just save to the drive as you used to save to a floppy!