Any idea why they are reporting the estimated lifespan at 290°C? Testing seems to have been done at 440°C and above.
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Coz the paper gives a function for extrapolating from these tests. This is purely testing thermal decay.
10,000 years sounds like a good benchmark and isn't as obviously ridiculous as saying a million years at 260°C
It's common to perform longevity testing at higher temperatures to simulate longer lifetimes, in account of nobody has decades of time to actually perform a 1x time test.
I wonder if "damp" modes of decay could still damage them though, which isn't captured in this style of testing. Like some wet chemical or biological process.
Mechanical decay would also damage them. I think it’s assumed that the media will be stored in a place protected from humidity, chemicals and hammers.
Yes I suppose a strong casing can protect against all that, but not against temperature so that's the one thing they still need to test for.
Borosilicate glass is much more resistant to chemicals and shocks than ordinary glass, which is why it is used in glassware for laboratories and in also in the better cooking vessels.
Except for hydrogen fluoride (a.k.a. hydrofluoric acid) and for hot and concentrated strong alkalies, biological or chemical agents will not have effects.
The main danger is either breaking the glass or its crystallization at high temperatures. A HDD is also unlikely to survive a drop on a hard floor and high temperatures would demagnetize it much more easily than affecting a glass stab.