OS X Mavericks: The Missing Manual

Burning CDs and DVDs

Burning a CD or DVD is great for backing up stuff, transferring stuff to another computer (even a Windows PC), mailing to somebody, or offloading (archiving) older files to free up hard drive space. You can buy blank CDs and DVDs incredibly cheaply in bulk—$20 for 100 CDs, for example—via the Web.

You can burn a disc in either of two ways: with the blank disc inserted or without.

Burn Folders: Without the Disc

The burn folder is a special folder that you fill up by dragging file and folder icons to it. Then, when you’re ready to burn, you just insert the blank disc and go.

The burn-folder concept has a lot going for it:

• No wasted hard drive space. When you use a burn folder, you’re not using up any additional disk space as you load up a disc with files and folders. Instead, the Mac just sets aside aliases of the files and folders you want to burn. Aliases take up negligible hard drive space. When you finally burn the disc, the designated material is copied directly onto the CD or DVD.

  UP TO SPEED: Mac OS Extended Formatting

  When you use Disk Utility to erase a disk (or when you first install OS X and elect to erase the hard drive in the process), you’ll be confronted with a choice between formatting options called Mac OS Extended and Unix File System (UFS). (Depending on the kind of disk, you may also see an option to create a DOS-formatted disk for use in Windows machines.)

  Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) refers to the HFS Plus filing system, a disk ...