What is the fastest optical media type?

[rabident]

Do 18x DVD-R read back at 18x? What about Bulray (BD) and HD-DVD.

Looking for the fastest optical drive/media type to copy 1 large image file from.

 

[TechHead]

16X is the fastest media type. Certain drives write to some 16X media (Taiyo Yuden/Verbatim) at 18X or 20X.

Fastest readbacks on DVD are 16X. There are some experimental firmwares out for Lite-On DVD writers to read back at 20X, don't think they are public yet.