From owner-freebsd-hardware Sat Aug 30 19:14:49 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA12951 for hardware-outgoing; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 19:14:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA12934; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 19:14:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost.smith.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA00788; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 11:43:14 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199708310213.LAA00788@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: mjacob@feral.com cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG, richard@pegasus.com Subject: Re: Is this (SCSI) tape drive compatible with FreeBSD? In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:15:39 MST." <199708310015.RAA00360@ns.feral.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 11:43:12 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >A 250meg capacity is awfully small today, and the tapes are too expensive. > >They're also excruciatingly slow. > > This isn't even 250Meg. It's QIC-120 (120Meg) or QIC-150. > The Viper 150 will happily read and write the 250 and 525MB extended-length tapes. (Yes I have one, yes, I have used these tapes). Whilst the criticism that these drives are "slow" and the tapes "expensive" is not entirely without basis, it's worth bearing in mind that these drives are *robust*, and properly stored the media are very stable. You won't find this in any current drive or media except (perhaps) a DLT. mike