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| Floppy Disk FAQs |
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| 1. Why are HR diskettes so reliable? |
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2. Is a mere 10% increase of clipping level over Super RFD and only 20% over others, such a significant improvement? |
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| 3. Then the HR diskettes must be terribly expensive? |
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4. Now how is that possible? Something that has 3 times the life is 5-8% lower in prices? |
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| 5. How can one be so sure of the 'life of the diskettes'? How does one test it? |
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| 6. Does it mean that HR-RFD will never fail? |
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| 1. Why are HR diskettes so reliable? |
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As a matter of fact, technically HR stands for High Resonance of signals. The high resonance of signals is attained by HR diskettes due to two factors:
i) High Clipping Level : In the critical 'Missing Pulse' test during QC, Amkette HR is tested at a very high level of 65% clipping. This when compared to the international specs (ANSI), at which most diskettes are tested, gives phenomenally favourable results. Even compared to its earlier Avatar Super RFD, HR is decidedly far superior. The table below summarizes the Clipping Levels of different media specs :
| Others (ANSI) |
Amkette Super RFD |
Amkette RFD-HR |
45% |
55% |
65% |
ii) Superior Media : HR diskettes are crafted from the latest generation superior media. This media offers a high consistency of Gamma FeO2 deposition providing the signals uniform strength.
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| 2. Is a mere 10% increase of clipping level over Super RFD and only 20% over others, such a significant improvement? |
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While the HR's clipping level goes up only 10% over the widely acclaimed Super RFD, its life expectancy leapfrogs by over 80% over Super RFD. And when you compare it with other diskettes, HR's life is a whopping 330% more !!
Now isn't that what we can call a 'real advantage'
|
Clip Level |
45% |
55% |
65% |
Brands |
Others/ANSI |
Super RFD |
HR-RFD |
| Life (R/W Op) |
3 million |
6 million |
10 million |
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| 3. Then the HR diskettes must be terribly expensive? |
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No, they are actually 5% - 8% lower priced than the Super RFD or other diskettes.
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| 4. Now how is that possible? Something that has 3 times the life is 5-8% lower in prices? |
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This is how the technology works. Today 200 MHz computers are almost half the price of old 4.77 MHz PCs. But strictly speaking, if we had used the Super RFD media or the conventional media used by many other brands, the costs of manufacturing would have made the HR prohibitively expensive.
It is a fact that the 'yield' of the diskettes (the percentage of diskettes out of the total nos. manufactured that pass through the QC) goes down in geometric proportions with the increase in the Clip Levels. Fortunately the Superior RFD-HR media affords much higher 'yields' when compared to the 'conventional' or 'Plain RFD' media.
The following table shows the percentage yield at different clip levels:
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Clip Level
(ordinary media)
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45% |
55% |
65% |
Plain RFD |
92% |
85%
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78% |
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HR-RFD |
94% |
90% |
87%
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Hence, when compared to our current product 'Super RFD' which gives us 85% yield at 55% clip levels, the HR-RFD media gives you a 2% higher yield at 10% higher clip level.
In this way, Amkette is able to give the customer a far superior product at a lower cost.
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| 5. How can one be so sure of the 'life of the diskettes'? How does one test it? |
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Of course, checking all diskettes for over 10million read/ write operations will take over a few decades. Hence, from every manufacturing lot few diskettes are taken at random. A selected track from a particular sector is subjected to over 10 million read/ write operations. If even a single track fails before 10 million read/ write operations, then the entire manufactured lot is rejected.
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| 6. Does it mean that HR-RFD will never fail? |
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HR-RFD offers much higher resistance to the 'Data Corrupting Influences' such as dust, fungus, drive misalignment, low drive head current, etc. The incidence of data corruption in HR - RFD is likely to be infinitely less than other options.
The following table shows the attributes of HR-RFD and their operational benefits.
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Attribute |
Operational Benefit |
| 1 |
10 million Read/Write operations |
- Higher life, more reliability |
2 |
Superior Media Raw Material |
- Better yield, lower prices
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Uniform and Strong bit signals |
3 |
High Resonance |
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Tighter Window margin controls while recording data
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Better chances of being read on even on misaligned, dirty or weak drives
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Higher reliability |
4 |
High clipping at 65% level |
- Longer life by 330%
- High portability across drives |
5 |
Super Binder Media Coating |
- Resists data dropouts due to dust |
6 |
Anti-Fungal Coating |
- Resists data dropouts due to fungus in humid conditions |
7 |
Low price due to high yield and higher technology |
-Makes technology affordable. A hallmark of a viable technology advancement |
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