Rounded ribbon cables do not cancel out the crosstalk that 80-conductor cables were designed to addresses, and thus allow a lot more "fuzz" and voltage spikes to be induced on the cable. Eventually, a voltage high enough to damage a semiconductor is induced on the cable through variable environmental factors, and the drive stops working.

I've had to work on enough machines with commercial rounded-ribbon cables, and dead hard drives, that I'd never consider putting one in my own system, no matter how k-rad or kewl they make the inside of the system look, or how much they help cooling. Risking my data for a few degrees ambient just isn't worth it.

Score:1