Imation as part of 3M was very concerned after reading some of these articles which seemed to imply that all CD-ROM discs would "self destruct" over time, as we had not seen this effect during environmental tests on our product. When looking at the error rates (BLER) on product made by other manufacturers, we did find some rather surprising results. After environmental stressing at 60^oC (140^oF) and 85% Relative Humidity for as little as 100 hours, some discs were essentially unplayable, where others had less severe problems (see graph). Some discs lasted 1000 hours or more, and Imation's lasted over 3000 hours with minimal change in error rates. It became clear that different manufacturing processes and materials can produce discs with widely varying quality levels and environmental lifetimes. The results of this testing drove us to do a second, more thorough study to predict the "lifetime" of Imation CD-ROM discs rather than just the number of hours they would last in a test chamber.

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