Re: ADTPro Apple II

[Warren Ernst <wernst@gmail.com>]

On Apr 28, 9:12 am, dog_...@macgui.com (D Finnigan) wrote:
> Toinet wrote:
> > On 28 avr, 05:29, Michael J. Mahon <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >> I hope you find 3.5" floppies to be as reliable as 5.25" diskettes.
> ;-)
>
> >> -michael - NadaNet 3.1:http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon
>
> > From my very own experience with tons of 3"5 disks, I find them less
> > reliable than 5"25 disks,
> > antoine
>
> I always that was because of the data density: 3.5" disks have a bunch of
> data crammed on a small surface, whilst 5.25" disks have less data on a
> larger area.
>
> --
> ]DF$
>
> Mac GUI Vault - A source for retro Apple II and
> Macintosh computing.http://macgui.com/vault/

I've found that I need to actively run a disk tester on 3.5's (either
DD or HD in a SuperDrive) immediately after formatting them. If they
test OK then the 3.5" disk is usually reliable for a long time. If the
disk fails the test then in the trash it goes.

5.25" disks rarely fail the test, while the 3.5" disks seem to have
close to a 25% failure rate these days.

I have wondered why this is, and have my own thought:

5.25 inch disks were made in a time when the floppy disk was the
primary PERMANENT storage medium, and thus they were very expensive,
manufactured to very high quality, and there were dozens of companies
vying for your business so they made a overly-reliable product. 3.5"
disks (well, HD 3.5" disks at least) were made at a time when the hard
drive was the primary permanent storage medium, and the 3.5" disk was
intended to be a TEMPORARY transport medium, either when installing
software for the first time, or when copying files from one machine to
another, and for backup copies of files ordinarily on your hard drive.
As such, they were manufactured as essentially disposable commodities
with vastly reduced quality and reliability.

The fact that the information is stored more densely doesn't help
matters either.

-Warr