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From: binder@dosadi.DEC (Do not adjust your set...)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Cheap diskettes, perils thereof
Message-ID: <6742@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Apr-84 09:31:35 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.6742
Posted: Tue Apr  3 09:31:35 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Apr-84 07:56:23 EST
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 43

>>> I certainly agree with buying the best diskettes 
>>> you can get.  It's simply not worth the headwear
>>> and grief to save a few dollars.

> I don't understand this.  I have never seen a floppy (brand)
> that didn't fail.  The cheap diskettes are about half of the 
> price of the Maxell/Verbatim/Dysan group.  If you use both sides
> this means that you can make four copies for the price of one.
> So even if you make two backups you're saving money.  I agree
> that after a lot of use the cheap diskettes are less reliable
> than the expensive ones, but the vast majority of my diskettes
> sit on the shelf as backups so reliability is not a factor. 
>	Buying expensive disketttes is like buying something from 
> IBM, you pay a whole bunch of money for a false sense of security.
>
>							jrh

Right?  Wrong.  I have never seen a floppy brand that didn't fail
eventually, but there is more than meets the eye here.  Sure, you can
get four times the storage. 

There is a very real problem, however, when you turn diskettes over
and use the back side.  The wiper material in a floppy's jacket is
designed to sweep the disk clean when it is rotated forward, and
turning the disk over makes it rotate backward.  All sorts of crud
comes out of that wiper, back onto the disk and under the head,
causing a higher error rate and gobbing up the head, making more
frequent cleaning necessary. 

Add to this problem the fact that cheap diskettes are more abrasive,
and what you end up with is greatly accelerated head wear.  I make
money writing with my computer, and I don't relish the prospect of
having to replace my head assembly when it goes west in the middle of
a deadline-critical session just because I saved a few pennies on
disks. 

I am using only DEC floppies, which cost $3.50 in lots of 50 - for my
money, they're worth the false (?) sense of security.

Dick Binder
decvax!decwrl!rhea!dosadi!binder

Tuesday 3rd April 1984, 09:29 Eastern time