modern removable media drives

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Thu Nov 12 21:25:13 1998

< No, no one with a grasp of how the technology works has ever claimed tha
< little dust or smoke will damage a floppy disk or drive. Floppy disks u
< much different head/media interface than winchester rigid-media drives.
< or smoke particles can and will cause head crashes on winchester drives

Floppies with added dust will destroy the media and I've seen a few heads
that were unserviceable. It's not healthy for the positioner either. The
media does not tolerate dust.

< of the drives in product literature, and it is also consistent with the
< high failure rate I've observed (approaching 100% after four weeks on th
< Syquest drives). Winchester drive technology was developed for permanen
< sealed HDAs, not cartridge drives. And even the sealed drives were desi
< with air filtration.

The 270mb Syquest I have is used, the media is used and the current
platter has been in the drive for a month without accumulating bad
blocks. It former owner used it in a firld construction site to log
sample data. It does have a recirculation filter and the spin up
suggests that the heads are not loaded until the airflow (and platter
speed) is established. There is not majik, spin a platter at 3600rpm
and dust can be counted on to migrate to the walls. The cart has ribs
to direct the airflow. Just because it has a shutter I don't use that an
excuse to subject it to dust and other risks.


Allison
Received on Thu Nov 12 1998 - 21:25:13 GMT