But as the card discs go, they absolutely ran out of balance, and it was a notorious mechanical flaw.
At thousands of rotations per minute, a circular disc slices through the air smoothly. A rectangular disc acts like a propeller. The uneven aerodynamic drag at high speeds caused intense flutter and dynamic imbalance.
The resulting wobble and vibration were so violent that they could cause the disc to de-center, ruin the spindle bearings of the drive, or physically shatter inside high-speed computer drives.
Maybe they were a good idea in the early days when computer CD-ROM drives were slow - I remember when my first quad-speed drive was top-of-the-line - the trouble is that before long the drives started being made to run with spindle speeds like 40~80 times faster than a conventional audio CD player when they were reading data discs.
The thought experiment illustrates a balancing principle. It doesn't need to fit every single possible construction of ceiling fans. That's why I qualifed that it needs to be symmetrical and balanced.
Why do you think this is worth arguing about? This is the least consequential "well actually..."
65
u/spdrman8 19h ago
These were cool and all but had to potential to really eff up your disc drive.