Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 18:08:33 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: The Clark Family <Clark@open.org> Cc: jsd@gamespot.com, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: HP T4000s Tape Drive problems Message-ID: <19990709180833.L12182@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199907090813.BAA15329@opengovt.open.org>; from The Clark Family on Fri, Jul 09, 1999 at 01:39:57AM -0700 References: <199907082224.PAA27583@opengovt.open.org> <199907080218.VAA14937@hostigos.otherwhen.com> <199907082054.NAA03455@hudsucker.gamespot.com> <199907082224.PAA27583@opengovt.open.org> <19990709114248.R6035@freebie.lemis.com> <199907090813.BAA15329@opengovt.open.org>
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On Friday, 9 July 1999 at 1:39:57 -0700, The Clark Family wrote: >>> I seem to remember that Exabyte jumped into the fray at this point. > > (With 8mm.) > >> >> Exabyte have been around for over 10 years, since before DDS. >> > > But am I correct in remembering that they were working with a different > tape technology for most of those 10 years? No. > I seem to remember older exabyte tapes that looked like QIC. More like the > old 1.2GB Tandberg stuff. (Magnus 1.2GB?) It's possible that they made other tapes before, though I don't know of it. But I first got to know them in 1990, at which time they were the only game in town for helical scan, but HP was bringing out the DDS drives (which they called DAT in those days, a habit they still haven't completely forgotten). >> High capacity 20 GB native capacity >> >> High reliability and durability >> >> Backward compatibility to previous DLTtape formats >> > > Speaking of which, have you seen any of the DLT2000 tape drives on the market? Yes, there are some at the Disk Drive Depot. $595, I think. >>> DLT does also have some pitfalls: >>> >>> One, is that they are expensive. I seem to remember that it was usual for >>> the DLT4000 to go for about 4k$ when the first came out. >> >> The disk drive depot in Sunnyvale is currently selling refurb units >> for $995. But the tapes are *really* *expensive*. > > I wouldn't be suprised to see them available refurbed pretty often. Quantum > was suggesting that any drive that crashes with a tape inside be sent back > to the factory for repair. Wouldn't these then become "refurbs"? Probably. BTW, I was wrong about the price. It wa $795, not $995. > As far as tape costs go: > > I think we were paying 80$ per (DLT) 20GB/40GB tape. 2$ per GB? That's about what I paid. > I think we were paying 8$ per (DDS-1 90m) 2GB/4GB tape. 2$ per GB? 90m should be round $4 now. > I don't know what AIT or DDS-3 tapes cost, but when we made the transition > to DLT, I don't think either of them were on the market yet. I don't know AIT either. DDS-3 are somewhat more expensive, but I don't have per GB prices. >>> Second, is that it takes quite a while for the tapes to load load and >>> unload. This can be a problem in tape jukeboxes, or if you tend to need >>> bits of data off the tapes often. >> >> They're still faster than Exabyte, and on par with DDS. >> > > But slower loading than AIT? I don't know AIT. Maybe. None of the helical scans are speed demons when it comes to loading. Exabyte, in particular, seems unbelievably slow. > Either I didn't get in the point about the drives being able to choke on a > tape, or perhaps you didn't think it worthy of including in the reply. I didn't have any experience, so I didn't say anything. > Do you think this is a non-issue? I've not had to remove a broken tape > myself, and wouldn't be daunted by the task. But two of the administrators > I work with have had to take turns pulling broken tape from the pick up > reel, and were a little put off by the incident. > > A statistical anomaly? I don't know. I don't either, though I have heard of damage of this nature. I've had similar problems with helical scan tapes as well. Greg -- When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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