Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!decwrl!decwrl!netcomsv!netcomsv!grumpy.symantec.com!symantec.com!rtrigg From: rtrigg@symantec.com (Roger Trigg) Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom Subject: Re: What is Multisession??????? Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 22:20:23 Organization: Symantec Lines: 49 Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <2lfq9i$ldk@sndsu1.sinet.slb.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 155.64.72.17 X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev A] In article <2lfq9i$ldk@sndsu1.sinet.slb.com> mehran@laplaceatlanta.emna.slb.com (M. Mikail) writes: >From: mehran@laplaceatlanta.emna.slb.com (M. Mikail) >Subject: What is Multisession??????? >Date: 7 Mar 1994 18:03:30 GMT >What exactly is a "Multisession" CD-ROM drive? Why would I want my CD-ROM >drive be multisession? I was told by a sales rep at Micocenter that a >double-speed CD-ROM drive is necessarily multisession. Is that true? I am >skeptical of things that not-so-knowledgable sale people tell me. Multisession drives are drives that can read data that was recorded in two or more sessions. For example take a Kodak Photo CD, you can take in some slides and have say 30 slides put on a disk. Then later you can take in some more slides and the same disk and have the addition slides put on in a second session. If you don't have a multisession drive then the second session's information will be unreadable for you. In answer to the second part of your question (double speed always multisession), I don't know 100%, but it sounds like BS to me. It may be that in practice all double speed drives ARE multisession just because double speed drives only came out after it became obvious that everyone wanted to go for multisession. (Personally though, I would be cautious and always ask rather than assume). BTW, since you're in the market for a double speed, I would strongly recommend the Toshiba 3401. I have one at home and we have several at work, they are very fast, dependable, and no more expensive than the competition. (Make sure you don't pay over $350, and you should be able to find something around $300-325). >What is the performance difference between a CD-ROM drive that has 32K RAM >buffer vs. one with 64K RAM buffer? This is another case where I don't know the "real" answer. But I'm not sure that it really matters, since they're both going to be pretty poor. You want performance, get some caching software. Hope that helps, Roger Trigg (rtrigg@symantec.com) >Thanks in advance >Mehran Mikail >e-mail: mehran@atlanta.emna.slb.com