Re: Question

[aw133@lafn.org (James Poore)]

In a previous article, ljsilicon@aol.com (LJSILICON) says:

>Just my two cents on the subject. I have been using High Density disks for some
>time on my GS and have had less failures with them than I had with the 800k
>variety of 3M diskettes. The only draw back is taking them from my GS to my
>Mac. My Mac won't read them unless I cover the extra hole with a piece of tape.
>I have been using these disks for well over 5 years now, so I don't know what
>the big deal is all about. Actually, it is my understanding, that the media on
>the HD disks is better than the 800k media and should, therefor, be more
>reliable. Any real Engineers out there may wish to comment.
>
>LJSilicon
>
Ok, so I'm not a real engineer, but I was in the tape engineering dept at 
Kennedy Co (since bought out by Shugart and...).  Better media usually 
means a denser magnetic material which keeps its magnetic orientation for 
a longer period of time and resists the effects of stray magnetism.  But 
in order to use the material to its best capabilities, a stronger 
recording current is required to align the denser particles (to be more 
specific, a larger quantity of smaller particles).  So naturally it 
follows that a lower recording current would have an incomplete alignment 
of particles and a greater tendency towards self erasure.

In my experience, if a HD disk doesnt make it through formatting on the 
first pass, it will fail down the line.  If it goes thru formatting on 
the first pass it will usually stand the test of time.  Some HDs wont 
format at all on the 3.5 drives and the unidisks.  The disks that take 
two passes in the formatting stage, I use for temp storage only.

Jim

-- 
James M (Jim) Poore--Apple II's Forever--Especially IIgs's
Los Angeles Free Net---aw133@lafn.org
Here siggy, siggy...Here Boy
Where is that damn SIG?