quality of writeable optical media (was Re: SCSI CD drive capable of reading CD-R)

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that Eric Smith may have mentioned these words:
>Billy wrote:

> > 5.  Saying a certain brand is crap, and another outstanding may be only
> > a personal bias.
>
>No.  Saying that media from CMC Magnetics is crap is a statement of fact,
>backed up by much evidence collected over a period of years.  CMC Magnetics
>discs purchased last month were not any better than those purchased
>three years ago.

Saying damn near _anything_ from Memorex is crap is a statement of fact. 
Their 5.25" floppies sucked. Their 3.5" floppies sucked. Their cassette 
tapes sucked. Their mainframe 9-track tape drives sucked. Their CD-R[w] 
media sucked. Their CD-R[w] drives sucked. Needless to say, I've not tried 
any of their DVD branded media... ;-)

These are all media and/or devices that I have personally worked with over 
the last 20 years; I have yet to see *anything* from that company that I'd 
even let my dog urinate on, let alone trust for data storage.

>Also, the fact that TDK has at times in the past shipped CMC Magnetics
>media under the TDK brand does tell me something very important about
>the TDK brand.  Even though TDK might not be shipping CMC Magnetics
>media today, there's no way in hell I'll ever buy writable optical media
>from TDK again.  Not because it's crap today; since I haven't tried it
>recently I don't know.  But instead, because it is proof positive that
>TDK does not perform adequate qualification of their suppliers.  Thus
>there is no way to buy TDK optical media and have any reasonable
>expectation that it is not crap.

Bingo!

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch at 30below.com

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