Burning Multiple Disks

I have read previously that with Linux you cannot write to more than one optical concurrently, Is this still true? Are ther4e any distors or software that allow witing to more than one optical drive at a time?

Paul

Linux is generally very good at multi-tasking, so I wonder whether the constraint on writing to multiple disks is actually a Linux issue. I’ve always understood that writing to optical disks is a somewhat delicate process, and that it is generally a good idea to keep all other activity on the machine to a minimum while a write operation is in progress (irrespective of the OS). I have 2 optical r/w drives on my machine, and I can open 2 instances of Xfburn and point each to different drives - so it looks like I could in theory launch 2 simultaneous write operations.

I read this on other community groups. They said that you may be able to open multiple instances of the burning program and send to two drives, but one will write and then the other saving no time. I have a Windows computer that has 4 optical dives and it will burn to all four at the same time

I am trying to make a computer that can be used for disk duplication. The computer above has a four core processor which facilitates using the four drives. All the articles that I saw said that the problem was in the linux kernal. I could not find anything more recent than 2010 confirming or denying this.

I don’t remember having burn several disks simultaneously. But in theory there is no reason you can’t do that. One specificity of writing optical disks is the drive must be fed by a steady stream of data at the same rate it “burn” them. There is a small buffer on the drive to deal with small variations in the input stream, but the OS/Disk burning utility must absolutely be able to fill that buffer as soon at it detects it is no longer full. Problems arise if this is not feasible because of the system load, or if there are congestions caused by other activities on the drive bus.

On Linux, burning disks as root might help, since in that case, the software may run with a real time priority and thus will not be delayed by “user level” processes even in case of a high load on the system.

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It would be interesting to know whether the capability to burn to the four drives is actually saving time, or whether each burn operation just takes longer (i.e. whether the time taken from the start of the operation through to completion of the final burn is actually less than burning each disk in sequence). I definitely think on my machine that individual burn operations take less time on Linux (SolydX and Xfburn) than on Windows (Windows 7 and ISO Workshop).

LINUX has absolutely no problem writing to multiple discs at once provided you have the hardware resources to do so. Otherwise, there should be no issues doing this at all.

I did time it on my Windows machine and the one I am currently using has no time saving, but an earlier rendition did seem to be faster. The change came after upgrading the motherboard. Also, I am sure that more memory would help.

Write discs is a delicate process, that needs patience.
And you could put the speed at 1.0 X, and avoid to use PC
while writting disc.Linux is pretty multi-task, but for writting discs
is best one at a time :slight_smile:

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I had a Win 7 computer with a quad core processor that was great at burning to four drives. I put the same processor in a newer “better” board and did not get the same results.