Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!ames!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!axion!stc!datlog!torch!paul
From: paul@torch.UUCP (Paul Andrews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Have you checked your floppies lately?
Message-ID: <328@torch.UUCP>
Date: 26 Apr 89 11:06:09 GMT
References: <28718@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: TORCH Computers Ltd., Cambridge, England
Lines: 22

chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:

>This may seem like a strange comment, but have you checked your floppies
>lately?...

I've worked in this industry for nigh on 10 years and in my experience
roughly 1 out of 5 floppies will fail after 6 months. The reason for the
failure seems to be partial faults in the media that cause the magnetic
domains to 'float' after a certain length of time. If you repeatedly
write to the floppy, it will probably be OK. But if you put data on and
expect to be able to read it 6 months later, beware the 1 in 5 rule.
An analogy would be having to continually refresh dynamic RAM's, only there
the latency period is somewhat shorter.

The moral of this story is: make more than one backup of the same data
if it is REALLY critical.

As chuq writes. If you EVER discover a floppy with a media error, throw
it away. Re-initialising it will usually fix any existing faults, but they'll
be back in a few months time.

- Paul.