Life span of DVD Burners

[whizkid]

Hi guys,

Not sure if this is the right place for this topic, but I was just wonderin:

We use an external DVD burner (USB) to burn maybe 5-6 discs a week (mostly videconference recordings). Will shortening the lifespan of the burner be reduced considerably if we use the same for verifying / playing the discs as well? We generally go over the recorded sessions at-least once before archiving.

So basically will the life of the burner be affected if it is used to say playback 10-20 hours of video as well?

Also with the latest technology nowadays what's the MTBF (Mean time between failures) for DVD burners? Is it calculated in hours of read/write or number of discs it can burn? And what are averages like?

Cheers!

[NightTran]

Dont burn back to back, verify by using your stand alone player, six a week may last you years if you have a right burner ( my benq gone through 5-6k discs already)

[dr_ml422]

Tran's right on the money whizkid. 5-6 a week if it's still supported will last you a life time. My lgs that came w/my dell e310 have maybe 100 or more burns and their still kicking. Mind you those are oems from dell and not at the top like the other better well known burners.