8.1.6 System Description, Complexity and Cost

8.1.6.1  As noted in Chapter 2, Key Digital Principles, almost all recent generations of computers have sufficient power to manipulate large audio files. Providing all the system standards regarding the equipment used for conversion and ingest of audio data set out in Chapter 2 are met, the system complexity and the degree of expertise required to run such systems is not much greater than is necessary for desktop computer operation. Many reliable CD and DVD burning programs are available that meet the standards required.

8.1.6.2  The only additional equipment required for the production of recordable CD or DVD is the burner, or drive. The drives may be mounted in the computer cabinet or separate though attached to the computer. The drives communicate with the computer through protocols such as IDE and SCSI for internal drives,and Firewire or USB for stand-alones. Certain drives produce lower error rate CD-Rs and DVD-Rs than others, and it is the responsibility of staff to assess and analyse the results of the disc burning before purchasing (see Section 8.1.9 Errors, Life Expectancy and Testing and Analysis).

8.1.6.3  The low system complexity, easy availability of technology, and inexpensive media makes the CD-R and DVD-R a popular option with sound archives. However, as demonstrated in Chapter 6 Preservation Target Formats and Systems, the cost of a more reliable data storage system is less if averaged across the whole collection, even for quite small collections.