Does the writing speed when burning a CD or DVD affect the integrity of the data?

Question

I recently burned a few cd's and dvd's, mostly documents for clients. So you always get to choose the burning speed, ranging from 2x to 48x normally. So how does this influence the integrity of the data? Also, will it affect documents like excel files more at higher speeds than say a movie? Then you get the 'verify data' function as optional - doesn't it makes sense to verify the data anyway? It should be by default to check or compare. Lastly, does the writing speed in any way, affect the reading speed after the disc was burned?

Answer 1

The burning speed affects the integrity of the data quite a lot. It could happen that a disc burnt with 48x speed is not readable properly, or is not readable in some readers, but readable in others, whereas the same data burnt to the same disc with slower speed would be readable everywhere. Other than this effect, there is no difference (so the reading speed will not be affected) - either you can read it or not. Running a verify after burning can give you an answer with high confidence to the question if the disc is readable or not. In borderline cases, however, even a successfully verified disc is not guaranteed to be readable in every possible readers. Usually, those readers having problems with discs burnt with high-speed are the older readers.