The "best" brand depends on the criteria you believe are important an the weighting given to each criterion. Some criteria are: recording quality on the drive available consistent quality batch to batch long-lasting archivability availability in retail stores close by price packaging features such as ink-jet quality and disc print coverage Most brand names provide nearly equal results in these characteristics. Those discs using phthalocyanine dyes are better for archiving than cyanine dyes, but that may not be important. (The major manufacturer of cyanine-dye based discs is one of the best for consistently high quality.) Just about any major brand is equally good for CD-R, and most brands do switch from several manufacturers. CD-RW is trickier. I'd stick with high-speed instead of ultra-speed for reasons of stability. There are many fewer CD-RW manufacturers because the metallizers are being used for more expensive rewritable DVDs instead of cheaper CD-RW discs.
