A survey has revealed that almost all brands of high-density 3.5 floppy disks advertised as 100% certified to ANSI standards do not in fact comply with them. Some do not even work properly. The survey was carried out by Memcon – Memory Control Technology Corp of Omaha, Nebraska. Of the 21 disk brands tested, only one – Sony’s – passed the crucial ANSI missing bit and extra bit tests in all of its tested samples. Brands that failed the tests include BASF, IBM, JVC, Maxell, Memorex, Kodak and TDK. There is also no correlation between the quality and the price of a floppy. Sony disks have an average price of $3.78, slightly above the average disk price but well below the $4.63 charged by IBM – the highest average price for a below average disks. In order to comply to the ANSI specification on disk testing, Memcon used 100 disks from each manufacturer, 20 taken from each of the five geographic regions in the United States. Although some disks from some manufacturers passed the missing and extra bit tests, Sony was the only brand which passed it on all of its disks.
Unreadablemissing and extra bits refer to minor defects on a disk’s surface which can cause data to be lost or unreadable. Both are widely accepted as good gauges of disk quality and are used by ANSI. A disk that loses or corrupts stored data is at the least a nuisance and at worst a disaster – if the data is important and the data cannot be recovered from any other source. Some disks in the survey did not function at all. Others appeared to work, but data stored on them was later found to be unreadable. In a test to determine the functionality of disks on a personal computer, disks were tested to see if they could be formatted on the computer and if they retained dtat – and 12 f theE 21 brands had at least one disk in their sample which failed the test, either on formatting or losing data. IBM, TDK, Centech and KAO had a functional failire rate of 5% or more. The survey is the third to be carried out by Memcom. Based in Omaha, Nebraska, The company manufacturers disk testing equipment and is an independent software duplicator. As such it gets through high volumes of floppy disks – at least half a million a month. It has no interest in any of the companies whose products are included in the survey. Memcom has concluded from its findings that disks which are labelled ANSI CERTIFIED have not in fact been tested to the standards of the ANSI – The American National Standards Institute. Copies of the report have been sent to ANSI and all the manufacturers involved. Of the companies that did badly in the teste, only IBM and KAO have responded positively. KAO contacted Memcom before the survey was even published admitting that There may be a problem with its disks. It has since revised its testing procedures and Memcom says the current batch of disks fared much bettwe in the same tests. IBM contacted Memcom to verify the results and obtain samples of its faulty disks. It is now lokking at its testing procedures. Of the other manufacturers that came bottom of the pile overall – Xidex, Opus, and Centech – those that contacted Memcom at all only did so to Make excuses. None challenged tha survey’s methods. Memcom Chief Executive Gerald Korth says that although manufacturers have done an excellent job of developing materials for disks, they need to focus on assembly and testing of the final product – To weed out the bad ones.
