Pronouncing x in the name of a CD product

I would like to know how to pronounce 48x Cd-Rw. The problem is how to pronounce the "x" in the context of computing.

In my experience, a "48x CD-RW drive" is read out either as a "forty eight speed rewritable drive" or as a "forty eight ex rewritable drive". The former is the preferred option (random video from Lite-On). The latter is more colloquial.

The symbol x is pronounced times there and in a number of other contexts as well. You can remember this by thinking of arithmetic: 2 x 3 = 6 is pronounced two times three equals six. The CD packaging is telling you it is 48 times as fast as some long-ago "normal" speed. Specifically:

CD-ROM drives are rated with a speed factor relative to music CDs (1× or 1-speed which gives a data transfer rate of 150 KiB/s). 12× drives were common beginning in early 1997. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Rom

Notice how the wikipedia article carefully uses an x symbol that floats a little higher than the letter you can type on your keyboard. In a book I wrote recently with a lot of need to write about "a 20 times speedup" and the like, we got our copy editors to substitute that "times" symbol for the letter x. But on a product label you would probably not notice the difference.

If you did say forty-eight ecks people would probably understand you though.