World's Crappiest Drives (was Re: A&J Microdrive)

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Wed Dec 6 13:49:40 2000

At 03:29 PM 12/6/2000 -0600, John Foust wrote:
>And the technical difference between silver and gold crap? :-)
>Different dyes?

No, different elements. One uses aluminum foil and the other gold foil.
Aluminum has the unfortunate tendency to oxidize once oxygen permeates(sp?)
the plastic or the top seal. This oxidation shows up as "black crud"
growing from a crack or scratch. Gold on the other hand doesn't oxidize and
so doesn't fail in this manner. The life of Al CD's is conservatively 25
years, gold 100 years. I read the National Archive report but a recent
Google search didn't turn it up again. I only use "gold" CD-R disks :-)

--Chuck
Received on Wed Dec 06 2000 - 13:49:40 GMT