From a tech's point of view - Re-Writing a CD actually dose BURN the layer of reflective material away. You can use them about 4-8 times and then you are risking MAJOR data corruption. CD technology was designed from the ground up as a non-volatile storage media... not to use like a tape drive or large volume removeable drive. It is not effected by magnetic fields and as long as you don't scratch it or let it melt, your stuff is safe for good. The new Zip drives go up to 250 meg and have a much better track record. Re-Writables are too risky after 4 burns.