Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!umn-d-ub!nic.MR.NET!xanth!mcnc!thorin!unc!steele
From: steele@unc.cs.unc.edu (Oliver Steele)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Number of writes on an optifloppy
Message-ID: <5302@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 14 Nov 88 14:17:56 GMT
References: <8646@spl1.UUCP> <568@poseidon.ATT.COM> <1075@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
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Reply-To: steele@unc.UUCP (Oliver Steele)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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I posted an answer to this in a different thread ("Canon CD", I think),
but it looks like it didn't get read.

In a talk about the 5.25" Sony oppy, by Dr. Robert P. Freese (one of the
patent-holders, and president of Alphatronics, which sells the drives),
he said that his lab had tested the Sony oppies up to 10 million
continuous writes of a single track, without failure (this took about a
month) and that Sony has supposedly tested up to 30 million.

My impression was that this beat magnetic technology, which tends to wear
down and will probably suffer a head crash before that many writes, but
I'd appreciate correction if this is not so.

I'd expect the 3.5" (3"?) Canon oppy to be equivalent.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Oliver Steele					  ...!decnet!mcnc!unc!steele
 UNC-CH							   steele@cs.unc.edu

 "It may not be the easy way --
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