Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 12:58:39 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: sef@kithrup.com (Sean Eric Fagan) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Tape drive questions/recommendations Message-ID: <199606170328.MAA14041@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <199606170250.TAA25328@kithrup.com> from "Sean Eric Fagan" at Jun 16, 96 07:50:34 pm
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Sean Eric Fagan stands accused of saying: > > >> My oldish DAT tape drive is dead. Bugger. > >Sadness. What brand? How did it die? > > It *was* a modified Wang drive. It did not start out life as a SCSI drive > -- there is a daughterboard attached to it with a SCSI interface. Ooh! Is the daughterboard anything recognisable? (Does it have Emulex labels on it, for example?) > The scsi part seems to be what has died. I can put a tape in, and eject it > by pressing the eject button, but it is not recognized by the 1542 during > probing, and its access light (the only light it has ;)) never comes on. > > I figure that it is, basicly, dead. Sounds pretty final to me too. > >Avoid Conner like the plague. Archive are OK, so are HP, so are Sony, so > >are the WangDAT units. The Exabyte is a pretty OK unit, but the 8mm > >mechanicals aren't quite as robust as the DATs. > > The ExaByte 2501 is, according to the freebsd hardware doc, not an 8mm > drive. Merde merde merde merde merde. The Connor probably isn't, either, > so that rules *that* out. Hang on. I was under the impression that the 2501 was one of the single-board 8mm units; I make this mistake all the time. The 8xxx series are the 8mm units, so ignore the comment about 8mm mechanicals. > That leaves the HP, which I *know* is a true DAT drive (I've had lots of > experience, both good and bad :() with HP DAT drives. The Archive, again, I > know nothing about, and Disk Drive Depot was closed today (bloody; I'll be > going tomorrow). All of the units you've listed are 'true' 4mm DAT units. I'm no fan of Exabytes, as they have a fascist repair policy and their spare parts are astronomically expensive 8(, so keep on ignoring them 8) > One of my major concerns is price, obviously. The more I spend on a tape > drive, the more of a problem I have with a monitor. Natch. On those criteria, take the cheapest of the Archive/HP/Sony that you can get 8) > NCA (a local store, for those who don't know ;)) has WangDAT units for close > to $1k (a bit above it, I think). Ow! > Sean. -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] Collector of old Unix hardware. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
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