SCSI tape drives
Matt Schalit
Would anyone like to offer their recommendations
for a SCSI tape drive?
I'm interested in replacing my old HP 4mm DDS1 DAT,
and I've read here that Sony makes some good ones.
But that was awhile back, and I'm wondering if that
still holds and why.
I could use either an LVD or SE, and I could use
at least 20GB of capacity.
Wasn't it true that some of the Sony models read and
verify in a single pass?
Thanks,
Matt
Bob Bailin
"Matt Schalit" <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.UW2.4.33.010725...@yoda.schalit.net...
The Sony SDT-11000 is a good DDS-4 DAT drive that stores up to 40GB
compressed on a 150m DDS-4 tape. It's both LVD and SE compatible, and like
most newer DAT drives is backwards compatible with DDS1, DDS2 & DDS3 tapes.
From my limited experience with it and the older 7000 & 5000 models, it
seems to be more reliable than the older models, probably due in part to the
air-flow slots in the front bezel keeping assorted particles from being
sucked right onto the head. The older models needed factory maintenance
(cleaning, alignment) within months of the expiration of the 2-yr warranty,
without fail.
Backup speed is impressive, about 200MB/min for a full backup, vs. 80MB/min
for the 7000 (DDS2), 40MB/min for the 5000, and most likely 25MB/min for
your DDS1 drive. YMMV, depending on the speed of your disk subsystem and
SCSI adapter. Avoid the 9000 (DDS3) model, it's very slow when using DDS1 &
2 tapes. The 10000 model is considered obsolete.
Most all DAT drives do an on-the-fly read-after-write check, with rewrites
as needed, but this is not a substitute for a bit-level verify after a
backup.
Sony is no longer planning to develop a DDS5 drive, marking the end of the
line for DAT tape drives.
Jean-Pierre Radley
|
| "Matt Schalit" <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
| news:Pine.UW2.4.33.010725...@yoda.schalit.net...
| >
| >
| > Would anyone like to offer their recommendations
| > for a SCSI tape drive?
I'd opt for an OBDR model, which so far as I know, is soley an HP
offering. Using such a drive (OBDR="One Button Disaster Recovery") my
OSR5 nightly master backups, made with the latest beta of BackupEDGE
01.02.00, are *bootable* tapes. No need for the three RecoverEDGE
floppies at all.
--
JP
Bill Vermillion
Matt Schalit <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> Would anyone like to offer their recommendations
>for a SCSI tape drive?
> I'm interested in replacing my old HP 4mm DDS1 DAT,
>and I've read here that Sony makes some good ones.
>But that was awhile back, and I'm wondering if that
>still holds and why.
It still holds. Why? Sony just knows how to make devices with
rotating heads - since the days the invented U-Matic 3/4 tape
cartridge about 25 years ago -perhaps.
> I could use either an LVD or SE, and I could use
>at least 20GB of capacity.
20GB means a minimum of a DDS-3 in compressed mode to get 24GB max.
DDS-4 maxes out at 40MB - but tapes are typically over $25 each
while the DDS-3 are about $15.00. That's a long way from the $6
for DDS-2s. That may affect your thinking.
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
Bob Meyers
"Bill Vermillion" <bi...@wjv.com> wrote in message news:GH1tL...@wjv.com...
> In article <Pine.UW2.4.33.010725...@yoda.schalit.net>,
> Matt Schalit <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> It still holds. Why? Sony just knows how to make devices with
> rotating heads - since the days the invented U-Matic 3/4 tape
> cartridge about 25 years ago -perhaps.
I also use Sony DDS2 & DDS3 (SDT-7000, SDT-9000) with good success. But that
OBDR JPR described sounds pretty interesting. What are they JP? DDSX? DLT?
> 20GB means a minimum of a DDS-3 in compressed mode to get 24GB max.
> DDS-4 maxes out at 40MB - but tapes are typically over $25 each
> while the DDS-3 are about $15.00. That's a long way from the $6
> for DDS-2s. That may affect your thinking.
The Sony DDS3 is downward compatible. So you can use DDS1 and DDS2 tapes in
a DDS3 drive. I have bought DDS2 tapes for clients who don't need the bigger
tapes.
Jean-Pierre Radley
|
| "Bill Vermillion" <bi...@wjv.com> wrote in message news:GH1tL...@wjv.com...
| > In article <Pine.UW2.4.33.010725...@yoda.schalit.net>,
| > Matt Schalit <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote:
| > It still holds. Why? Sony just knows how to make devices with
| > rotating heads - since the days the invented U-Matic 3/4 tape
| > cartridge about 25 years ago -perhaps.
|
| I also use Sony DDS2 & DDS3 (SDT-7000, SDT-9000) with good success. But that
| OBDR JPR described sounds pretty interesting. What are they JP? DDSX? DLT?
Mine is DDS3. HP C1737A.
--
JP
Bill Vermillion
Bob Meyers <oregon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
True - BUT - because of the difference in recording method you
don't transfer data as fast on a DDS2 as you do a DDS3. That means
backups/verifies take longer. If you DDS2 backups are only take
10-15 mintues thats one thing - but if they get really long then
the $15 DDS3 may make more sense than the $6 DDS2.
If you have to do any maintenance on site that would involve a
kernel change - I always unmount everthing except the base OS, and
then make a backup. Depending on time that could pay for the
difference in tape cost. I learned to do this after having
programs that needed drivers fail and then fail to relink, and the
'cleanup' program of the driver removed some other important files.
This way a major failure means just booting from a super-tar
recovery disk, remaking the root file system, and reloading.
By remaking the root fs I am SURE that nothing was left over.
If you only need DDS-2 I have all my clients buying used tape at
under $2.00.
Before you panic at that - these are one-pass brand name tapes used
by the drive manufacturers when they test each drive before
shipping. So they are essentially pre-tested.
One other thing - learned from the old days of mag tape when I
worked in audio - for critical recordings [you couldn't go back and
do it again] you always use a tape that has been at least played
through from end to end one time - and when we had some tape that
was not quite up to 'our' standards - we record from end to end
while watching simulataneous playback, or listening. We had
problems with asperity noise [very low frequency noise that only
accompies a recorded signal] from one manufacturer for awhile.
That is caused by an uneveness in the coating and the low-end
frequency repsonse changes with oxide thickiness. I think they
finally traced it down to a bad bearing in one of the calendaring
machines during manufacture. Having worked with mag tape in radio,
TV, and recording, I learned never to trust it.
Present technology is wonderful, but the bit-level verify after
backup is a godsend.
Bob Bailin
"Jean-Pierre Radley" <j...@jpr.com> wrote in message
news:2001072517...@jpradley.jpr.com...
But does an OBDR drive require anything special in the way of a SCSI
adapter, or will any SCSI bios that supports booting from removable media
also boot from OBDR?
And how does HP get around the problem of instructing the end-user on how to
(easily) change the SCSI boot device to the tape drive? It's been mentioned
here before that many vendors still leave their systems booting from the
floppy drive first, just in case of an emergency recovery situation.
Stuart J. Browne
We use both these, and the DDS4 big brother. The newer release of them have
been stable. (By the same token, we had one client go through a DDS3 drive
a month. Turned out the paper shredder in the next room was too close).
bkx
rollee
> Would anyone like to offer their recommendations
> for a SCSI tape drive?
Go with a true American tape drive, I mean, a REAL tape drive. Get an
8MM Exabyte. They have been around for years, and are true workhorses.
I have two of them, both are old models. One, is the 8200 which holds 2
Gb, and the other is the 8505, which holds 14 Gb. That is the one I use
now, for windoze and Unix, with no problems. Tapes are common, and
support is excellent.
Bob Meyers
"rollee" <rol...@genesis1st.com> wrote in message
news:3B60119D...@genesis1st.com...
> Go with a true American tape drive, I mean, a REAL tape drive. Get an
> 8MM Exabyte.
Oh yeah? How much does an 8MM tape cost? How much does a drive cost? I once
had a company tell me these were going to obsolete DDS. That was years ago.
> They have been around for years, and are true workhorses.
So is 4MM DDS child's play?
rollee
> "rollee" <rol...@genesis1st.com> wrote in message
> news:3B60119D...@genesis1st.com...
> > Go with a true American tape drive, I mean, a REAL tape drive. Get an
> > 8MM Exabyte.
> Oh yeah? How much does an 8MM tape cost? How much does a drive cost? I once
> had a company tell me these were going to obsolete DDS. That was years ago.
> So is 4MM DDS child's play?
Yes, it is. As to your question about cost, well it obviously depends on the
model you want. The tapes also depend on where you buy them. You can get
official Exabyte tapes
which are a little pricey, or you can simply go down to your local video store
and buy 8mm blank tapes, normally for video cameras. However, as the quality is
usually not as good as those designated to be data tapes, I would be careful to
check out the details of the tape before buying it for use in data storage.
Ask anyone who has used 8mm tape backups. They work, they are simple to
install, and they can hold just about any volume you ask for, depending on the
model of the drive.
Bob Meyers
> As to your question about cost, well it obviously depends on the
> model you want.
Oh a ball-park figure on a DDS3 (12/24GB) equivalent?
> The tapes also depend on where you buy them. You can get
> official Exabyte tapes which are a little pricey
^^^^^^^^^
Ball-park figure?
> They work, they are simple to
> install, and they can hold just about any volume you ask for, depending on
the
> model of the drive.
How is that different than 4MM DDS?
Jean-Pierre Radley
| > offering. Using such a drive (OBDR="One Button Disaster Recovery") my
| > OSR5 nightly master backups, made with the latest beta of BackupEDGE
| > 01.02.00, are *bootable* tapes. No need for the three RecoverEDGE
| > floppies at all.
|
| adapter, or will any SCSI bios that supports booting from removable media
| also boot from OBDR?
The magic is in the drive, which is a SCSI device and cannot know or care
which brand/model of host adapter is driving the bus.
| And how does HP get around the problem of instructing the end-user on how to
| (easily) change the SCSI boot device to the tape drive? It's been mentioned
| here before that many vendors still leave their systems booting from the
| floppy drive first, just in case of an emergency recovery situation.
Indeed, and you do not want to change that sequence at all.
HP provides the following instruction:
"power up the drive while pressing the Eject button"
Then the tape emulates a CD-ROM, and if you've ever booted from a CD-ROM,
you'll have seen the message that drive A has becone drive B, and the
CDROM has become drive A.
Couldn't be simpler...
--
JP
Gerry A Graesser
> Would anyone like to offer their recommendations
> for a SCSI tape drive?
>
I bought my self an Ecrix (VXA-1) Internal LVD (80Mb) drive for about
$700 US
from http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com. This drive is on the UW7.1.1 list
of supported
SCSI tape drive. The tapes come in 3 differnent lenghts with the
largest holding 75GB
compress. It is a propriately drive interface buy some artices/tests
show/prove that
the data recovery reliability is super - you wouldn't believe what they
all did to the
tapes and stilll retrieved the data. In face, the drive will let you
read/skip over bad
data, should that be the case, and continue to read whatever is
salvageable.
I believe each piece of data is actually written multiple times/places
on the tape.
Anyhow,. the price/performance was right for me since I could not afford
the DLT
drives and did not want the others which I have heard/read are not
reliable over time
and are not very interchangeable with other drives.
Just my two cents worth.
Gerry
BTW - It also works fine under Windows 2000 - haven't tried it with
Linux yet.
D. Thomas Podnar
:
: > Would anyone like to offer their recommendations
: > for a SCSI tape drive?
: >
:
: I bought my self an Ecrix (VXA-1) Internal LVD (80Mb) drive for about
: $700 US from http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com. This drive is on the
: UW7.1.1 list of supported SCSI tape drive. The tapes come in 3
: differnent lenghts with the largest holding 75GB compress. It is
: a propriately drive interface buy some artices/tests show/prove that
: the data recovery reliability is super - you wouldn't believe what they
: all did to the tapes and stilll retrieved the data. In face, the drive
: will let you read/skip over bad data, should that be the case, and
: continue to read whatever is salvageable. I believe each piece of data
: is actually written multiple times/places on the tape.
:
: Anyhow,. the price/performance was right for me since I could not
: afford the DLT drives and did not want the others which I have
: heard/read are not reliable over time and are not very interchangeable
: with other drives.
:
: Just my two cents worth.
:
: Gerry
:
: BTW - It also works fine under Windows 2000 - haven't tried it with
: Linux yet.
The Ecrix VXA-1 is an excellent product. It works fine under OpenServer,
UnixWare, Linux or anywhere else.
To avoid potential confusion...
The above indicates the drive has a "proprietary drive interface".
This is incorrect. The two primary models have standard SCSI
interfaces. One is singled ended 50 pin, the other 68 pin LVD.
It is the DATA FORMAT that is proprietary, which simply means that no
other manufacturer currently makes a similar drive or media.
The VXA-1 has some interesting next generation technologies. For instance,
its packetized data format and variable speed operating allow it to
vary its write speed dynamically and actually slow down when backup
data rates slow, greatly reducing data underruns. In addition, if it
does stop, it can start up from a dead stop without the annoying
"shoeshining" or "backhitching" that most tape drives use to get back
up to speed after a stop.
There are three media types:
V6 Cartridge - 62 meter - 12GB uncompressed - ~ 24GB compressed
V10 Cartridge - 107 meter - 20GB uncompressed - ~ 40GB compressed
V17 Cartridge - 170 meter - 33GB uncompressed - ~ 66GB compressed
In the case of this drive, the data format is the same for all three
media types (VXA-1) so the capacity scales with length.
As with any other device, compression capability is always relative
to your data.
There are currently three types of compression commonly used by
tape drives.
Type 1 - No compression. This includes all Travan tape drives that
do not include the NS designation, ie NS8/NS20.
Your software must provide the compression
Type 2 - DCLZ or some derivative of Lempel-Ziv-Welch compression.
Most tape drives using this technology claim a 2x compression
ratio AND write speed when in compress mode.
This is the standard used in all compressing DDS drives.
Type 3 - IBM Adaptive Lossless Data Compression (ALDC).
The VXA-1 uses a variant of this mode that supports a 2:1
compression and data rate ratio.
Travan NS8 and NS20 uses ALDC.
The new Ultrium LTO drives support a complicated scheme
called ALDC-2 that claims 2:1 ratios.
Sony AIT drives incorporate support a derivative of ALDC they
claim provides a roughly 2.6x compression ratio and
data rate increase.
but I digress. The speed of the VXA-1 is roughly that of DDS4. Quick
File Access capabilities are also quite good.
There is a new IDE/ATAPI version of this drive available, which would
make it the first volume IDE/ATAPI tape device not based on
Travan technology. We haven't tested it yet.
There is also apparently an IEEE1394 (FireWire) drive which is not
useful in this space.
Tom Podnar
Microlite
Bill Vermillion
Bob Meyers <oregon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>"rollee" <rol...@genesis1st.com> wrote in message
>news:3B60119D...@genesis1st.com...
>> Go with a true American tape drive, I mean, a REAL tape drive. Get an
>> 8MM Exabyte.
>Oh yeah? How much does an 8MM tape cost? How much does a drive
>cost? I once had a company tell me these were going to obsolete
>DDS. That was years ago.
And DDS is in it's final stages - having been made obsolete by size
limitations which means it can't keep with storage demands - and
the battle for the market place seems to be between AIT and the
decendents of 8MM and the LTO group.
8MM tape technology was always more expensive than DDS as DDS was
based on the audio DAT which was designed to replace the audio
cassette - which meant low priced record/playback systems and cheap
media.
The 8MM devices sprang indirectly from the Kodak 8MM
camera/recorder concept - which they finally gave up on - which was
then taken over by Sony [I don't know how much except for tape
width survived from the original Kodak attempt] and made into the
first alternative to the VHS systems. The first Exabytes I saw
were nothing more than the Sony 8MM transports.
But DDS has always been the cheapest of the rotary-head storage
market and the unchangeable laws of physics as to the amount of
bits which can be stored per square cm [areal density] have been
pushed to the readily useable maximums - while 8MM [or any larger
technology] will give the higher storage per/tape capacity.
It's the per/tape capacity that is the most important because
tape/media changes add signifcant cost until you get to the units
which require a great many tape cartridges - the largest that I've
seen [show demo] was about 13 feet long and had a several petabyte
capacity - that's over a giga-gigabytes.
>> They have been around for years, and are true workhorses.
>So is 4MM DDS child's play?
No - just technology which has been pushed to the limits. Equate
it to things similar to floppy drives - which for most people
topped out at 1.44MB - as few use the 2.88MB disks - and the
maximum I saw in 'floppy' style format was 25MB. The 100MB in the
Zip drives could best be described as a hybrid - with some floppy
technology and some HD technology.
The 1.3MB DAT DATA drives that first came out seems SO BIG - and
now you can't even find HD's being manufactured that are under
about 10GB.
Just time to move on.
Bill Vermillion
>> Would anyone like to offer their recommendations
>> for a SCSI tape drive?
>I bought my self an Ecrix (VXA-1) Internal LVD (80Mb) drive for about
>$700 US
>from http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com. This drive is on the UW7.1.1 list
>of supported
>SCSI tape drive. The tapes come in 3 differnent lenghts with the
>largest holding 75GB
>compress.
>In face, the drive will let you read/skip over bad data, should
>that be the case, and continue to read whatever is salvageable.
>I believe each piece of data is actually written multiple
>times/places on the tape.
Probably the best way to describe the Ecrix is that it is more like
storing the data in packets instead of a bit stream. Since data is
not written in an angular stripe acoss the tape put in multiple
small packets the date is in smaller pieces which is assembled.
Think along the lines sectors on a disk.
One of the biggest things to cause slow tape backups is the tape
waiting for data and if it writes it's buffers then it has to stop,
backup, reposition and restart and you spend more time
repostitioning the tape than you do writing it.
VXA basically said 'lets slow down the tape so the data stream
catches up'.
Sounds good - and would be easy in linear technology. In
rotary-head technology the path of the head [at an angle on the
head drum] along a moving tape describes a helix. Change the tape
speed and the angle of the helix changes.
If you slowed the tape down on playback to match the record speed
you really would have gained nothing. However by putting the data
in many small packets written on the helix you can play the tape
back at a constant speed. The track width and head-width are such
that you will be able to read a few packets even when the anlge of
the helix of the read head doesn't match that of the record head,
because the next head on the drum [there is more than one but I
don't recall if I ever knew how many there were] will pick up the
next packets.
Thus you never stop the tape during record, and you play the tape
back at the maxium tape playback speed and use mulitple heads to
match the data. You won't see the amount of data stored in the
form factor increase much as we are also approach limits at which
we can make the base for the tape reliable in a consumer
environemnt.
The DAT format started with 60 meter of tape in the shell. The
DDS-4 now 150 meters of tape in the same shell - and if you ever
worked with reel-reel tape you know that the thinner the tape the
more care you must take to avoid damage.
I think I got all of this above correct. If I've missed something
I'm sure Tom can correct me.
>Anyhow,. the price/performance was right for me since I could
>not afford the DLT drives and did not want the others which I
>have heard/read are not reliable over time and are not very
>interchangeable with other drives.
Price/performance is usually the deciding factor. The only other
factor that will typically come into play it time That could be
considered part of performance.
A friend of mine worked for an engineering firm. Several years ago
he was telling me about his backup problems. They used Exabytes
and changers. As data increased each department would get backed
up one day a week so at the end of the week all department had one
backup. They would start the backups at 7pm and they the backups
were just finishing at 7am when the employees started arriving.
That was when they had to go to a faster system.
>BTW - It also works fine under Windows 2000 - haven't tried it with
>Linux yet.
I'd be surprise to find anything working in a Unix environement
that wouldn't work in an MS enviroment :-) Too bad the inverse
doesn't hold true. Maybe that's just Darwinism at the OS level.
Bob Meyers
"Bill Vermillion" <bi...@wjv.com> wrote in message news:GH4x7...@wjv.com...
> No - just technology which has been pushed to the limits. Equate
> it to things similar to floppy drives - which for most people
> topped out at 1.44MB - as few use the 2.88MB disks - and the
> maximum I saw in 'floppy' style format was 25MB. The 100MB in the
> Zip drives could best be described as a hybrid - with some floppy
> technology and some HD technology.
>
> The 1.3MB DAT DATA drives that first came out seems SO BIG - and
> now you can't even find HD's being manufactured that are under
> about 10GB.
>
> Just time to move on.
But Bill, if you were going to buy a tape drive for a client TODAY, would
you buy a DDS3/DDS4, or an Exabyte 8MM?
Yesterday I installed a new Sony SDT-7000 (DDS2) for a client. I would not
recommend DDS2, but this client is... cheap. He would have gasped at paying
$ 700- $900 for a new tape drive. The DDS2 drive, with Sony 3 year,
overnight replacement warranty was $ 463.00 from Techdata.
I may see flames for a "cheap" client. I know that story too. At least he
isn't using a Travan drive! He has ran a very consistent volume size for the
past 10 years (was on Xenix). I gave him the options and that drive is the
one he wanted. I can not tell the guy this is not a good drive to use, I
personally have had good success with them.
BTW, after Podnar's endorsement of that Ecrix VXA-1 drive, that looks much
more attractive to me. I would probably still recommend DDS3/DDS4 though,
simply on the grounds that most of my clients and myself are running the
same drive. If I need to juggle data, it is easy.
rollee
> But Bill, if you were going to buy a tape drive for a client TODAY, would
> you buy a DDS3/DDS4, or an Exabyte 8MM? I would not
> recommend DDS2, but this client is... cheap. He would have gasped at paying
> $ 700- $900 for a new tape drive He has ran a very consistent volume size for
> the
> past 10 years (was on Xenix).
You don't have to pay $700-900. Check out the various newsgroups for computer
stuff, or check out www.processor.com. "Processor" is a newspaper type circular
that is literally all ads. They are probably the best source for good
new/used/refurbished computer stuff around. Depending on how much storage your
client needs, an excellent quality used Exabyte 8mm tape drive that holds
20-40GB can be had for around $300. I bought my Exabyte 8505 [14Gb] for only
$125, and it is really great.
I, too, was on SCO-Xenix until a couple of years ago, when I finally
upgraded to SCO Openserver. I had been using a Exabyte 8202 for 10 years with
no problems. It ran 24/7 and was only touched once daily to change the tapes.
Believe it or not, I still have it, although I don't use it since I upgraded to
the 8505.
Jeff Hyman
Bill,
I see no slow down in users of newer DAT tape drives. If 8mm
is so popular, where are they over-taking DAT?. When one
is at the mercy of wanting a single tape for a full system backup
then the 100Gb AIT is an obvious choice. But my records show an
increase in jukeboxs and robotic units for real large data sites,
and a 24/48Gb tape drive is still very ample in most cases for a typical
single unix site. Enterprise-Wide backup products which handle large
networks are another story. Issue there becomes larges amounts
of data from an accumulation of many smaller clients/nodes. In
many cases if the user can "partition" the backup strategy
(backup 4 clients to tapedrive-A, backup 5 others to tapedrive-B)
then an attempt is still made to fit the schedule onto one tape.
This would fall into a medium sized site, as I'm not claiming
this is the solution for everyone. But before making any suggestions
on my end I'd want to know:
1. Size of the network (if any)
2. Capacity of tape drive(s)
3. Capacity of a single tape
4. Window of opportunity/time to get the data backed up
5. Do databases have a window to be shutdown
6. Who's in charge of swapping and rotating tapes
and monitoring success/failure logs.
Heck, its possible none of our suggestions are good ones depending
on the answers.
.02
--
Best Regards,
Jeff Hyman, President
.--.
__________________________ .-. | | __________________________________
Lone Star Software Corp. | | | | .-. E-Mail: je...@cactus.com
Cactus International, Inc. | |_| | | | Sales: 800.525-8649
509 E. Ridgeville Blvd. _ |___ |_| | Support: 301.829-1622
Mt. Airy, MD 21771 _| ~- | ___| Fax: 301.829-1623
http://www.CACTUS.com \, _} | | http://www.LONE-TAR.com
------------------------- \( -- | | -----------------------------------
| |
Ben Rosenthal
> In article <QEW77.35$7d....@newshog.newsread.com>,
> Bob Meyers <oregon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >"rollee" <rol...@genesis1st.com> wrote in message
> >news:3B60119D...@genesis1st.com...
> >> Go with a true American tape drive, I mean, a REAL tape drive. Get an
> >> 8MM Exabyte.
>
> >Oh yeah? How much does an 8MM tape cost? How much does a drive
> >cost? I once had a company tell me these were going to obsolete
> >DDS. That was years ago.
>
> And DDS is in it's final stages - having been made obsolete by size
> limitations which means it can't keep with storage demands - and
> the battle for the market place seems to be between AIT and the
> decendents of 8MM and the LTO group.
>
<SNIP>
> >So is 4MM DDS child's play?
>
> No - just technology which has been pushed to the limits. Equate
> it to things similar to floppy drives - which for most people
> topped out at 1.44MB - as few use the 2.88MB disks - and the
> maximum I saw in 'floppy' style format was 25MB. The 100MB in the
> Zip drives could best be described as a hybrid - with some floppy
> technology and some HD technology.
>
<SNIP>
> Just time to move on.
This begs the question: "What about SLR?" Like Tandberg SLR7
www.tandberg.com. It has a capacity of 20GB native 40GB compressed. I have
always liked Tandberg. How do these drives compare to the others mentioned?
>
>
> --
> Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
Ben Rosenthal
Bob Meyers
"Jeff Hyman" <sco...@cactus.com> wrote in message
news:m15QB6h...@cactus.com...
> Heck, its possible none of our suggestions are good ones depending
> on the answers.
Quite true. I am guilty of viewing things from my own point of view/customer
base.
Bill Vermillion
Bob Meyers <oregon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>"Bill Vermillion" <bi...@wjv.com> wrote in message news:GH4x7...@wjv.com...
>> No - just technology which has been pushed to the limits. Equate
>> it to things similar to floppy drives - which for most people
>> topped out at 1.44MB - as few use the 2.88MB disks - and the
>> maximum I saw in 'floppy' style format was 25MB. The 100MB in the
>> Zip drives could best be described as a hybrid - with some floppy
>> technology and some HD technology.
>> The 1.3MB DAT DATA drives that first came out seems SO BIG - and
>> now you can't even find HD's being manufactured that are under
>> about 10GB.
>> Just time to move on.
>But Bill, if you were going to buy a tape drive for a client TODAY,
>would you buy a DDS3/DDS4, or an Exabyte 8MM?
Can't answer that because there are no enough details.
Sort of like - "I need a car just to go to the nearest 7-11 - what
do you recommend". Only later do you find he live in Montana, 70
miles from the nearest store. Interesting driving where the speed
limit was 55 MPH at night or when raining. I remember driving for
quite a while and was coming towards me from the distance. Then a
quick 'whish' and we were both in each other mirrors. I looked
down and I was at 105MPH and the car going the other was was
probably at the same speed. When can see everthing that might be
a hazard with 2-3 miles of you your driving changes :-)
What does the client have now in terms of controller and HD.
If it's an older SCSI-2 no reason to put on a drive that will go
faster than the controller.
If it's an old system, and running something like an ISA controller
- stil systems with that - you don't want to put on something that
will never be used in terms of speed, and capacity, unless the
system is going to be upgraded in the next year or so and you want
to migrate the tape drives.
If the system had less than 20GB to backup and it was running
OSR5 I'd probably stick with DDS4. In others I might go
with a DLT or and AIT device. But are you aware that what
most people think of when they say 8MM Exabyte they are thinking of
the systems based on the 8MM video tape format - 8200s -
the products that brought Exabyte name to the world, are
discontinued products.
From Exabyte you have the Mammoth [continuation of 8MM], and under
the small/medium business products the featured product is their
auto-loading AIT system [AIT - 8MM width with smart cartridges -
first from Sony and then Seagate - and now I don't know how many]
Exabytes definition of small/medium appears to differ with that of
many of the SCO users - with that product being a native 350GB
capacity system.
>Yesterday I installed a new Sony SDT-7000 (DDS2) for a client. I
>would not recommend DDS2, but this client is... cheap. He would
>have gasped at paying $ 700- $900 for a new tape drive. The DDS2
>drive, with Sony 3 year, overnight replacement warranty was $
>463.00 from Techdata.
>I may see flames for a "cheap" client. I know that story too. At
>least he isn't using a Travan drive!
That's a good drive, and it's reliable. It seems to be more reliable
than the HP products in the DDS-2 range.
Better to have a client who counts their dollars and uses them
wisely instead of going for the cheapest.
> He has ran a very consistent volume size for the past 10 years
>(was on Xenix). I gave him the options and that drive is the one he
>wanted. I can not tell the guy this is not a good drive to use, I
>personally have had good success with them.
No one said it is not a good drive. Tom indicated that DDS-2s were
more problematic, but I found that only on the HP's and moved to
the Sony's in the DDS-2. I just put one on a client last year -
upgraded out of Xenix - and his entire backups on his OSR5 are
taking under 25 minutes.
>BTW, after Podnar's endorsement of that Ecrix VXA-1 drive, that
>looks much more attractive to me. I would probably still recommend
>DDS3/DDS4 though, simply on the grounds that most of my clients and
>myself are running the same drive. If I need to juggle data, it is
>easy.
That's probably the best choice then. Ecrix is interesting.
Solves the large amount of data for a low cost that most other
large systems. It could be a good move for clients who don't have
to worry about compatiblity too much. At $900 list it does it's
job. And reliable verifiable backups are what it's all about.
What you should do is go to the Ecrix site and read their white
papers. The multiple head idea is used to read what they show as
'distorted' tracks. In the video world to handle tracks like that
the heads were mounted on piezo crystals and the head tracking was
changed dynamially - to give such things as perfect pictures in
still mode [industrial units of course].
In the data world you can do things that you can not do in an
analog world and the Ecrix method is an interesting way of getting
density up, keeping performance up, while keeping costs down.
Bill Vermillion
Ben Rosenthal <bcr...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>Bill Vermillion wrote:
[all previous tape comments deleted - go back and read the thread
if you need to - wjv]
>This begs the question: "What about SLR?" Like Tandberg SLR7
>www.tandberg.com. It has a capacity of 20GB native 40GB compressed.
>I have always liked Tandberg. How do these drives compare to the
>others mentioned?
Everthing else in this thread has been rotating head technology -
and almost every one [except Sony] has been a computer company from
day one.
Sony got it's start in audio after WWII - and made their first
inroads in the US with an audio tape recorder called SuperScope.
Compared to Tandberg - they are a late comer :-).
You can see part of their history on their web site - you the early
history mean you have to be able to know how to read Norwegian, or
know their products for very long time.
They make SLR, Travan and DLT drives.
Their history in magnetic media goes back a long way, starting with
Tandberg Radio in 1933.
An interesting company - in the European tradition of quality first
and that the easy way is not often the best way.
In the earliest days of magnetic audio recording the record head
usually had two coils on a common pole piece. One was fed audio
and the other the bias. When stereo recording came about with
a single head carrying both channels [the first used separate heads
as building heads was not easy then] you couldn't continue to do
this. The easy way was to mix the bias signal [typically over
100Khz with the audio signal 20Hz-20Khz] in the electronics and
apply that signal to the head coils.
Tandberg came up with a method where they put the bias in a
separate head on the other side of the tape - and made quite a
reputation for what we would now call 'thinking outside the box'.
Their tape technology goes back a very very long way. Their large
reel-reel machines were equally amazing comparing favorably to
Studers cheap home line Revox. [And calling Revox cheap is like
calling a $45K Mercedes cheap - only in comparison to their high
end].
The battle still goes on over which is better - linear tape as in
Tandbergs SLR [and things like DLT] or rotating heads.
Nobody really expected linear tape to get past the 525MB QIC format
- put companies like Tandberg have showed them wrong.
I attended a technical dissertation/lecture given by Tandberg
[probably 20+ years ago] when they were experimenting with a
digital reel-reel audio tape recorder for home use. This was
before DAT was on the market and about the time of the CD debut.
Because reel-reel works best in the home when you can turn the tape
over and not rewind it they had a machine with 7 linear digital
tracks spread across 1/4" tape with space for 7 more tracks when
you flipped the reels end for end. Their biggest hurdle was trying
to get seven read heads across that space because induction heads
require coils and there isn't a lot of room. ISTR - but can't be
sure as it was a long time ago - that they wound up with a flat
coil type of winding - and they may have gone to thin-film for
reading in the end.
That is far off the subject line - but it's just an example to show
you their depth. A great many people in the computing world only
know the Tandberg name from their data products divsion.
Choosing their drives over others comes down to the same selection
criteria. Size and performance and compatibility with your
environment. It's good stuff.
Bill Vermillion
Jeff Hyman <sco...@cactus.com> wrote:
>Recently, Bill Vermillion wrote:
I said:
>> And DDS is in it's final stages - having been made obsolete by size
>> limitations which means it can't keep with storage demands - and
>> the battle for the market place seems to be between AIT and the
>> decendents of 8MM and the LTO group.
> I see no slow down in users of newer DAT tape drives. If 8mm
>is so popular, where are they over-taking DAT?.
My reference to the 'battle for the marketplace' had to do with
storage demands and I should have also said performance. The battle
between those formats is interesting as one gets faster than the
other - and then a few month lates it changes again. The DDS-4 -
from everything I've seen - will not have a DDS-5 as a successor
even though the specifications exist. I didn't say they were
over-taking DAT - and did not mean to imply that.
>When one is at the mercy of wanting a single tape for a full system
>backup then the 100Gb AIT is an obvious choice. But my records
>show an increase in jukeboxs and robotic units for real large data
>sites, and a 24/48Gb tape drive is still very ample in most cases
>for a typical single unix site.
You'll not get an argument here. A jukebox is a logical step up as
it obsoletes nothing for any site and all their old tapes remain
readable.
>Enterprise-Wide backup products which handle large networks are
>another story.
Correct - it's just that small sites tend to become bigger and
bigger - at least for the succesful companies - and their needs go
far beyond their wildest expectations.
>But before making any suggestions on my end I'd want to know:
>1. Size of the network (if any)
>2. Capacity of tape drive(s)
>3. Capacity of a single tape
>4. Window of opportunity/time to get the data backed up
>5. Do databases have a window to be shutdown
>6. Who's in charge of swapping and rotating tapes
> and monitoring success/failure logs.
>Heck, its possible none of our suggestions are good ones depending
>on the answers.
Right. I think I mentioned that to Bob when he got the SDT-7000.
The tape system that fits the customer best is the one to go with.
Bill
D. Thomas Podnar
: ...
: BTW, after Podnar's endorsement of that Ecrix VXA-1 drive, that looks much
: more attractive to me. I would probably still recommend DDS3/DDS4 though,
: simply on the grounds that most of my clients and myself are running the
: same drive. If I need to juggle data, it is easy.
I wouldn't call it an endorsement. More of an understanding.
On matters magnetic, I yield to Bill Vermillion. We are lucky to have
a person of his experience here. I don't think anyone I've met is
better able to understand the technology and history of magnetic
storage AND explain it better than Bill. My hat is off.
On matters of data storage, my job is to (a) understand what's out there
and (b) figure out how to maximize the value of whichever product a
customer buys. (OK - Floppy Tape? - NOT!!)
I HAVE to be vendor neutral to support my clientele.
Each storage technology has a tradeoff somewhere. I did a speech on this
subject 6 or 7 weeks ago in Las Vegas.
Tandberg QIC/SLR technology has the ruggedness of a tank, for instance.
The tradeoff for many years was a performance penalty. It is still
the slowest mainstream technology for things like raw write speed and
Quick File Access. The media is premium priced (and large to store).
But for straight system backups every night when there is no sense of
urgency, it's killer. Newer models definitely are faster. The SLR100
is premium AND fast. Every time someone says that SLR is at end of life,
Tandberg proves them wrong. Their backward compatibility matrix is
sometimes confusing.
DDS3/4 are at the end of the line, but that just means that (a)
the technology is mature and (b) costs are down. It isn't going to
disappear anytime soon. It has great write speed and Quick File Access,
and all the kinks in DDS1 and DDS2 are gone.
VXA-1 is a first generation technology, but has the benefit of the
experiences, both good and bad, of the founders of Exabye behind it.
I haven't seen a roadmap, but if they have the funding to generate
momentum, I think it has a great future.
AIT is the same way. Another child of 8mm technology, it has progressed
to AIT 1.5, AIT-2 and now AIT-3 has been announced. Fast relative media
load times and good Quick File Access. A little high priced on media
but a strong future. Like DDS, Sony has been able to grab some nice
OEM's for AIT technology, and all the changer vendors love it.
Exabyte I really don't see as a tape drive company anymore. Sure, they
have Eliant, Mammoth and M2 drives, but their future appears to be as a
changer / library company. They will happily sell you AIT-2, DLT, and
Ultrium LTO devices in a changer in addition to their own.
DLT is another popular large capacity technology, and companies like
Benchmark are determined to make it more cost effective with its
ValuSmart Tape series. It is titularly the largest capacity mainstream
device (SuperDLT at 110/220GB). It shares many characteristics of SLR,
including questions about its future generations and gaps in its
compatibility matrix. Excellent traction.
Ultrium LTO is sort of like VXA-1 on steroids. Not in technology,
but in the fact that it is a first generation technology with a lot
of experience behind it, and in this case it has THREE major backers;
H-P, IBM and Seagate. On 10/07/2000 I posted a sumamry in this newsgroup.
On a single-hard-drive system running UnixWare 7.1.1, we copied about
4 1/2 GB of data to the system and ran a Master Backup at 412MB/min.
Man, were we pleased. Then we switched over to an Ultrium (H-P 230)
and ran the same test, and got *** 942 MB/min ***. The limitation was
that that's as fast as the hard drive could go. The tape drive was capable
of backing up a 2GB/min. And that's first generation product.
Expensive? Yes. Worth it? If you need the reduced backup window,
definitely.
Travan had the triple advantages of high media costs, poor reputation
and low reliability.
That having been said, there were a couple of NS series Travan drives
I really liked. The rest were built to price points, with predictable
results.
OnStream ADR? Well, there are also some very interesting technologies
in that product. As well as a half-mile or so of tape. Never developed
any traction, especially outside Windows.
For a while, hard drive technology was advancing too fast for tape
drives to keep up. That's changed.
NOTE: Everything I'm saying is my OPINION.
We get to see these devices in other ways, too. Like from the
SCSI programming side. Or firmware bug side.
Like many other products, things are supported in degrees by various
technologies AND different vendors. Some technologies support
Quick File Access better than others. Some _vendors_ support TapeAlert
a lot better than others. Some support things like OBDR.
There's no real conclusion to all this drivel. Jeff Hyman said it well.
The best tape drive for any one person or company (if indeed a tape drive
is the best storage technology for them) is not necessarily the same as
for any other person. And between he, Bill, myself, and a whole bunch of
others here, there's a lot of experience available to those in need.
"All right. Which one of you got Podnar started? He NEVER writes
this much!" ;-)
Tom Podnar
Microlite
Bill Vermillion
D. Thomas Podnar <t...@microlite.com> wrote:
>: Bob Meyers <oregon...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>: BTW, after Podnar's endorsement of that Ecrix VXA-1 drive,
>: that looks much more attractive to me. I would probably still
>: recommend DDS3/DDS4 though, simply on the grounds that most of
>: my clients and myself are running the same drive. If I need to
>: juggle data, it is easy.
>I wouldn't call it an endorsement. More of an understanding.
>On matters magnetic, I yield to Bill Vermillion. We are lucky to have
>a person of his experience here. I don't think anyone I've met is
>better able to understand the technology and history of magnetic
>storage AND explain it better than Bill. My hat is off.
Gee Tom, I'm blushing, but thanks. I've been told before that I
explain things quite well. I can only attribute the ability to
explain to my first career - broadcasting - where in radio the only
mode of communication was the spoken word - so you have to 'draw'
aural pictures.
I've also been utterly fascinated by the recording process since
I was about 6 or 7 years old and first heard my voice played
back after being recored - on a home disk recording machine. I
started out as a techno-junkie quite young - so the rest followed.
Curiousity can be a great incentive for learning things.
Thanks for the praise. The nice thing about groups such as
this sco.unix group is that there are so many varied backgrounds
that among us all we can up with the answer for almost any question
or problem.
Thanks for all your help too.
Darryl Krasman
--
Darryl Krasman
Ideal Computer Group Inc.
Darryl Krasman
> "All right. Which one of you got Podnar started? He NEVER writes
> this much!" ;-)
Dunno who but I have filed away some of the messages floating around and
appreciate all the good information given out.
Matt Schalit
On Sat, 28 Jul 2001, Bill Vermillion wrote:
> Gee Tom, I'm blushing, but thanks. I've been told before that I
[snip]
> Thanks for all your help too.
>
> Bill
Thanks *you* guys for all the help.
I'll just jump on the end of Bill's aw-shucks post,
and reply to a few things that were said with a little
more about what I found.
My last DDS1 HP drive lasted 8 years. I really appreciate
that, and it reinforces my esteem for HP, who made my brilliant
HP-15c calculator (that still runs like a champ).
My Yamaha 4416s went bad just after 2 years. The laser
that burns the discs won't burn anymore. I'm so unhappy
with Yamaha (it failed twice), that I'll never buy a Yamaha
product again. A lot of good people got taken by those
drives.
So when I read in the thread about Sony SDT's going bad
after the same amount of time, that does it. There's no
way I can justify being their guinea pig, or their
"American-who-throws-money-away-on-disposable-tech-
stuff-which-is-built-to-wear-out-fast."
Then I was intrigued by the fellow who posted about
buying a drive made in the USA. God knows I'd like to.
It's sucks every time I hear about another round of layoffs
in the tech sector. Those are my friends and family who
are losing their jobs.
But wait. Isn't my current HP tape drive American made?
Next I looked into Exabyte, which my radar hadn't picked
up unfortunately. Looking at their line of devices is
truly amazing. So are the prices.
What is the increased value that I'd get for all
that extra money?
Next on the list --- www.processor.com. That info
sounds promising. Anytime I can get a $2500 US drive
for $400 is a deal.
At some point, Gerry posted about the VXA. Wow.
The boiling, freezing, and hot coffee test. That's
what I'm talking about, huh? So the Exabyte creators
have started a new company, Ecrix, that makes the VXA,
which uses what they consider to be the best aspects
of tape drive engineering.
The VXA-1 looks cost effective when you only
look at the price of the drive. The downsides
I see are three:
1) Not around for long enough. Will my drive
really last for 10 years or so? It sounds
like the data on the tapes will.
2) Incredibly expensive tapes. $80 each.
DDS4 tapes are $25.
VXA-1 + 14x66GB tapes = ( $760 + $1120 ) = $1880
HP DAT40 + 14x40GB tapes = ( $1120 + $350 ) = $1470
3) Proprietary - no competition, no incentive.
After what Seagate did to me with noisy, hot, hard drives,
I'll have to pass on their tape drives.
Compaq is not a choice for me, either, as this is a
self-built system and they are more about proprietary
solutions.
So I think I've narrowed it down quite a bit.
Btw, I got my prices from
http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com/
http://www.warehouse.com/
I'd like to take one more moment to thank Tom for those
great essays. They were above and beyond the call of
my meager request but were immensely useful and really fair.
That can't be too easy :-)
Thanks,
Matthew
Bill Vermillion
Matt Schalit <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>On Sat, 28 Jul 2001, Bill Vermillion wrote:
>> Gee Tom, I'm blushing, but thanks. I've been told before that I
>[snip]
>
>> Thanks for all your help too.
>>
>> Bill
>
> Thanks *you* guys for all the help.
>
> I'll just jump on the end of Bill's aw-shucks post,
>and reply to a few things that were said with a little
>more about what I found.
> My last DDS1 HP drive lasted 8 years. I really appreciate
>that, and it reinforces my esteem for HP, who made my brilliant
>HP-15c calculator (that still runs like a champ).
There is a lot of difference in calculators and DDS drives.
> So when I read in the thread about Sony SDT's going bad
>after the same amount of time, that does it. There's no
>way I can justify being their guinea pig, or their
>"American-who-throws-money-away-on-disposable-tech-
>stuff-which-is-built-to-wear-out-fast."
I've had one Sony fail - the others run fine. I've also had an HP
fail. Sony was one of the prime devlopers of the DAT from which
DDS sprang from, and I've never had any problems with any Sony
product - but I do avoid low end home stuff entirely - no matter
who makes it. I've used Sony equipment - in other than backup
devices - for at least 25 years.
I will disagree with your 'built-to-wear-out-fast' statement.
> Then I was intrigued by the fellow who posted about
>buying a drive made in the USA. God knows I'd like to.
Very few things are built in the US anymore. My personal opinion
is to go with whatever is the best product, which includes design,
support and reliabilty, and not worry about the country of origin.
>It's sucks every time I hear about another round of layoffs
>in the tech sector. Those are my friends and family who
>are losing their jobs.
Some of that can be blames on management and today's bottom-dollar
attitude than long term customer service/support.
> But wait. Isn't my current HP tape drive American made?
> Next I looked into Exabyte, which my radar hadn't picked
>up unfortunately. Looking at their line of devices is
>truly amazing. So are the prices.
And the Exabyte 8MM started life as a Sony 8MM video transport.
> Next on the list --- www.processor.com. That info
>sounds promising. Anytime I can get a $2500 US drive
>for $400 is a deal.
As long as it is really worth $400 now. Sometimes good prices
are good values, sometimes they are not - it depends on how it fits
into your situation.
> At some point, Gerry posted about the VXA. Wow.
>The boiling, freezing, and hot coffee test. That's
>what I'm talking about, huh? So the Exabyte creators
>have started a new company, Ecrix, that makes the VXA,
>which uses what they consider to be the best aspects
>of tape drive engineering.
Most tech companies are started by ex-employees of other companies.
That does not mean the new company will be any better or any worse
- and you won't know until they establish themselves in the market
unless you KNOW why they left the original company.
> The VXA-1 looks cost effective when you only
>look at the price of the drive. The downsides
>I see are three:
> 1) Not around for long enough. Will my drive
> really last for 10 years or so? It sounds
> like the data on the tapes will.
Time to ask - how much other computer equipment are you still using
10 years alter. Longevity in the marketplace is not always a good
indicator. Have you not noticed that some companies that were in
business for 25 years don't exist. In the fast moving computer
world 10 years is an eternity.
Today's tapes are really amazing. But you were basing Sony above -
and Sony and one or two other Japanese manufacturers are one of the
reasons we have the high density tapes today - and are also the
reason that Ampex and Scotch no longer are in the audio and data
tape industry.
A slight digression. This has to do with the American losing jobs
and American business practices.
Sony and other non-American companies were moving to advanced
tapes, with metal particle and later evaporated metal - to be able
to handle the coming densities they could forsee.
The American companies, Scotch, Ampex, Brown, Tandy, and others
were firmly wedded to the iron oxide type approach and were using
doping - adding other materials such a barium - to the tapes to
increase performance.
In the meantime Sony was working the metal-particles. Pure metal
in small needle-like shapes that were glued to tape just like the
oxides were. Pure metal has more material to magnetize than does
an oxide of the metal. However Sony had problems in that the tape
would rust and thus lose the advantage of metal. They came up with
coatings on the particles that licked that. Increasing density
means making the particle smaller. They got the metal particles
down to the point where they were breaking. So they reached a
point that seemed they could not cross.
Then someone had a flash of inspiration and they coated the
particles with ceramic. [Ceramic is really strong if you've not
worked with it. You can even make automobile pistons from it]
This made the particle strong enough so they could make them even
smaller, and the coating took care of any rust problems.
That made Metal particle tape a marketable product and the American
manufactures had lost the lead and had done no R&D because of the
"lets just improve the current product". There are finite limits
to improving any product until you just have to take a new approach
an start over. The VXA packet writing was a new approach if you
look at it in that light.
Now metal tape - metal plated onto the backing - give the highest
density as the 'glue' [technically called binder] used to hold the
particles together is gone and the space it took is now filled with
magnetizeable material.
So even if you don't like Sony products you are using some of the
technology they developed and the AIT line that Sony, then Seagate,
and now others produce is a Sony design.
If you note the tape manufacturer above - there were 6 major
manufacturers. You were probably surprised by the name Tandy.
One of the leader in tape innovation was Memorex and I first ran
across them when they were making 1" and 1/2" reel-reel video tape
for the new VTRs coming to the US from Japan in about 1966.
When Memorex went bankrupt Burroughs got the data divison and Tandy
purchased the consumer product line.
That meant that for ahwile there were only three US manufactures of
home video tape, Scotch, Ampex and Tandy. Sony later built a video
tape plant in Alabama [where Ampex had their big plant] to bring to
four the total of video tape manufacturers in the US.
You've not seen the name Tandy on the tapes as they acquired the
consumer trademark - because "Is it live or is it Radio Shack" just
didn't have the same aura as the name Memorex. Tandy doesn't
always put it's name on the products it makes, such as the
O'Sullivan line of assemble-it-yourself furniture. [I don't know
if they've gotten out of tape and furniture].
I do know that RS was trying to sell us audio-tape and we tested it
and it performed quite well, but they couldn't even come near the
prices we got from Scotch, Ampex or Agfa.
> 2) Incredibly expensive tapes. $80 each.
> DDS4 tapes are $25.
Wow. I remember when 88K floppy disks cost me $6.00 EACH. That's
$60 for a box of 10 or 880K. "Incredibly expensive" is only
relative. So the VXA tapes are 3 times more expensive than the
DDS-4.
Have you not noticed that in all computer technology the largest
capacities are usually at a premium of two in addition to quantity
factor. Then the prices keep falling until the larger capacities
are cheaper per byte than the smaller capacities.
This holds in RAM, HD, Tape, CPU. Have you priced the cost of
the old 72PIN ECC RAM? Figure out what it costs to get the same
amount that one stick of DDRAM would get you and you can buy a
new motherboard, CPU and case for the difference of 256MB of 72pin
memory [remember it takes two sticks] against 256MB of DDRAM.
New technology was always expensive.
> 3) Proprietary - no competition, no incentive.
Means nothing. Really it doesn't. If it succeeds there will be
competition.
When 45RPM record came out only RCA made them - single and albums.
Whne the 33 came out only CBS made them singles and albums. RCA
took singles with 45 and CBS took LPs. Then the world adopted
them.
Lear [of Lear Jet fame] brought out the 4-track car tape recorder.
No one else made them. No competition for awhile.
Sony introduced the Walkman. No competition - for awhile.
Sony introduced the home VCR - no competition - for awhile.
Sony/Philips introduced the CD - with 50 titles on the
Sony/Phillips labels - no competition for awhile.
I remeber sitting at an IBM PC. Far overpriced. Slow. 16K of
RAM.Cassette player. Little monitor 160K floppy [while others were
already at 180K and 360]. Who would buy one of those - proprietary
- no competition. It was almost a year before the market grew
enough.
No competition isn't a good answer. If the product does what you
need it do and is the best one - then that's the one you use to get
your job done the best way. It's the same way with SW. Buy the
best SW package you need to to your job best and then buy the
computer and the OS it runs on to do the job. If that means not
running Linux and instead buying an AS400 - that's what you need to
do.
> After what Seagate did to me with noisy, hot, hard drives,
>I'll have to pass on their tape drives.
All high performance drives have to make noise. All high
performance drive were hot - to start with. I've never had a
Baracudda fail. Because all the ones I used were installed AS THE
FACTORY SPECIFIED THEM. There was a chart that was supposed to be
shipped with all drives but most distributors who shipped in bulk
never sent them along. THere was a specified mounting position and
air-flow direction. You follow that and they run and run. I'm
getting ready to replace some 1/2 HT 'cuddas [everything now is 1"]
so these drives are six years old. Run fine. installed per
engineering specs.
Why should tape drive have to do with hard drives. I avoid the low
end Seagate drives like the plague - but I use the high end.
Just as all cars that come from General Motors aren't the same -
you dont' say "I'll never own an Allante because this Chevette
was a piece of crap" so why apply it to different products form the
same manufacturer.
Just remember to buy the product that best fits your need - and
unless you are running a generic system - often price alone as the
guideline will get you something less than you need.
Ben Rosenthal
> In article <3B61A7BD...@attglobal.net>,
> Ben Rosenthal <bcr...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> >Bill Vermillion wrote:
>
> [all previous tape comments deleted - go back and read the thread
> if you need to - wjv]
>
> >This begs the question: "What about SLR?" Like Tandberg SLR7
> >www.tandberg.com. It has a capacity of 20GB native 40GB compressed.
> >I have always liked Tandberg. How do these drives compare to the
> >others mentioned?
>
> Everthing else in this thread has been rotating head technology -
> and almost every one [except Sony] has been a computer company from
> day one.
>
> Sony got it's start in audio after WWII - and made their first
> inroads in the US with an audio tape recorder called SuperScope.
>
> Compared to Tandberg - they are a late comer :-).
I have experience with Tandberg audio also. I know of a reel to reel
tape machine (the one with a joy stick) circa 1958 that is still in use.
Bill, I was hoping for your opinion 8-) I have the Tandberg Maginus
drives here and I will probably go direct to their SLR drives and skip
DAT totally.
Ben Rosenthal
Bill Vermillion
>> Compared to Tandberg - they are a late comer :-).
>I have experience with Tandberg audio also. I know of a reel to
>reel tape machine (the one with a joy stick) circa 1958 that is
>still in use.
The legendary 64-X Crossfield as I recall it was called.
Their 10.5" reel-reel of the 1970's could go head to head the the
Revox A series.
>Bill, I was hoping for your opinion 8-) I have the Tandberg Maginus
>drives here and I will probably go direct to their SLR drives and skip
>DAT totally.
No reason to change that I can see - today's choices are going to
be dictated by how much data you have to backup and how much time
you have to do it. They surely build ruggest stuff.
Matt Schalit
On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Bill Vermillion wrote:
>
Thanks for the followup Bill. It wasn't
really what I expected, but I appreciate
the insights.
> I've had one Sony fail - the others run fine.
> I've also had an HP fail.
I realize that neither brand is perfect.
I realize that I may have been lucky with my
HP DDS1 lasting so long.
> I will disagree with your 'built-to-wear-out-fast' statement.
Ok.
The Yamaha's cdrw's are built to wear out, and I don't
have to like it. But if the Sony's SDT's are quality,
then I have no problem telling anybody who'll listen.
That's why I asked if they were better and why. I
have no problem buying an ES receiver from Sony,
that's for sure. I trust Sony for audio items.
I'm inclined to trust companies like HP, which
makes good calculators, printers, and tape drives,
for computer items.
Now I see how tape drives are both audio
and computers.
> Some of that can be blames on management and today's bottom-dollar
> attitude than long term customer service/support.
Yes, bottom-dollar, low quality, get the user to replace it.
Don't take offense at my suggestion that devices are
engineered to wear out. The concept of getting the user
to replace a part is a well established business practice
dating back to when an American invented the disposable
bottle cap and suggest to another American named Gillette
that he also invent something the public would need to
replace. Five years later we had a razor with a disposable
blade.
But I think it's bad for the environment. I don't like
things that wear out.
With the economy the way it is, I just can't
experiment with different companies like I
used to.
I probably should have included the chart
that I made up of my choices, but I edited
it out for brevity.
The missing chart would have shown you I'm looking
at the two Sony's, the SDT-9000 and the SDT-11000,
in addition to the HP DAT24, the DAT40, and the VXA.
I can't decide. All things being equal, personal
experience and reliability are the only factors
that aren't quantified.
> > The VXA-1 looks cost effective when you only
> >look at the price of the drive. The downsides
> >I see are three:
>
> > 1) Not around for long enough. Will my drive
> > really last for 10 years or so? It sounds
> > like the data on the tapes will.
>
>
> Time to ask - how much other computer equipment are you still using
> 10 years alter.
I said ten years or so. I rounded 8 years up to ten and
debated in my mind whether to be specific. I knew that someone
would see the '10' and think it's extreme enough to comment on.
I'm still using the mainboard, cpu, case, 3c509b and power supply
as a Linux firewall. Had to replace the floppy and power
supply fan. Most of my equipment lasts me 8 years, and
that makes my really happy. Same Equinox multiport card.
Same 2940UW adapter. I don't like the SCSI drives, as they
run hot and loud, but they still run.
After each generation of machine gets retired from
active service, it gets reincarnated a year or so
later to be used for one of my younger cousins or
someone less fortunate.
My equipment lasts.
> Longevity in the marketplace is not always a good
> indicator. Have you not noticed that some companies that were in
> business for 25 years don't exist. In the fast moving computer
> world 10 years is an eternity.
Speed is a false indicator. Change is not always good.
Moore's Law is not necessarily a godsend. Longevity is
good in the realm of data storage.
> Today's tapes are really amazing. But you were basing Sony above -
It was improper of me to jump to conclusions
about Sony. Nothing bugs me like wasting
money and I'm still smarting from that Yamaha
ordeal.
[munched the history]
I'm familiar with ceramics. I've seen an
automobile engine made out of ceramics that
weighed 99 lbs and got 80 mpg, on nova I think.
> > 2) Incredibly expensive tapes. $80 each.
> > DDS4 tapes are $25.
>
> Wow. I remember when 88K floppy disks cost me $6.00 EACH. That's
> $60 for a box of 10 or 880K. "Incredibly expensive" is only
> relative. So the VXA tapes are 3 times more expensive than the
> DDS-4.
It's not that they are three times the cost of the
DDS4, it's that they are 15 times the cost of my
DDS1's.
I bought my DDS1 drive for $800 and have paid $5
a tape the whole life of the drive. The VXA
is around $800 and it's tapes are $80.
Thanks again,
Matt
D. Thomas Podnar
The missing chart would have shown you I'm looking
at the two Sony's, the SDT-9000 and the SDT-11000,
in addition to the HP DAT24, the DAT40, and the VXA.
I can't decide. All things being equal, personal
experience and reliability are the only factors
that aren't quantified.
Much stuff deleted.
Not knowing your exact storage requirements.
Going back to my first posting in this thread.
The biggest FEATURE difference in the products today, given that
all the ones you mentioned are very reliable and quite fast,
would be that only the HP drives have One Button Disaster Recovery
capability at the present time.
Having boot floppies or Bootable CDs to go with your backup tapes is
fine. But if you want your tapes to be self-contained, HP has the edge.
Tom Podnar
Microlite
Bill Vermillion
Matt Schalit <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Bill Vermillion wrote:
>Thanks for the followup Bill. It wasn't
>really what I expected, but I appreciate
>the insights.
I never do what is expected :-)
>> I will disagree with your 'built-to-wear-out-fast' statement.
>Ok.
>The Yamaha's cdrw's are built to wear out, and I don't
>have to like it.
I've never considered Yamaha in that environment. I sort of look
at Yamaha as the Sears of Japan :-). If you need it there's
probably something with a Yamaha brand on it.
You don't get a great deal of confidence in a company when Yamaha
does something as bizarre as making audio speakers with the
diaphragms shaped like an ear and using and argument was to make
you think 'if I listen with something shaped like this it makes
sense to have the sound sent by somehthing shaped like that'.
That audio market was accurately described by Don Davis as
"The High Futility Market". They build some serious motorcylces
as I remember the time they put their 350s in the 750 race at
Daytona years ago and everyone laughed - until they came across the
line 1,2,3.
>I have no problem buying an ES receiver from Sony, that's for sure.
>I trust Sony for audio items.
High end - and also high-end video.
>I'm inclined to trust companies like HP, which makes good
>calculators, printers, and tape drives, for computer items.
But they are all different divisions - just like all the General
Motors divisions.
>> Some of that can be blames on management and today's bottom-dollar
>> attitude than long term customer service/support.
>Yes, bottom-dollar, low quality, get the user to replace it.
Depends on the marketplace. Take the difference between cheap
printers and expensive industrial strength printers. So much
depends on the end users use - and sometimes the efforts expended
in replacing something are so hard that you are better off going
for something with long life.
>Don't take offense at my suggestion that devices are engineered to
>wear out.
That's all part of marketing. In today's world you can get things
more uniformly engineered so nothing is over-engineered and like
the poem about the Wonderful One Horse Shay from a century or so
ago, things can almost all wear out at once. You build heavy
trucks to be maintained over the years and light trucks to be
replaced.
>The concept of getting the user to replace a part is a well
>established business practice dating back to when an American
>invented the disposable bottle cap and suggest to another American
>named Gillette that he also invent something the public would need
>to replace. Five years later we had a razor with a disposable
>blade.
Actually that is more along the line of 'consumeables'. You make
the original last a long time so that the end-user sticks with your
consumeable instead of switching to something else. Old HP
printers sort of fit into that category. You can keep them running
[and many do] until you need the features in the newer printers -
but all along you keep buying cartridges. If there are any old
HP II's out there - at about $2500 original cost - how many tens
of thousands of dollars worth of cartridges have they used in the
past 15 years? That's not parts.
>But I think it's bad for the environment. I don't like
>things that wear out.
Too many people are worried about bottom line and not the
environment - the greed factor.
>With the economy the way it is, I just can't experiment with
>different companies like I used to.
Best to let other experiment and profit from their mistakes.
>I probably should have included the chart
>that I made up of my choices, but I edited
>it out for brevity.
>The missing chart would have shown you I'm looking
>at the two Sony's, the SDT-9000 and the SDT-11000,
>in addition to the HP DAT24, the DAT40, and the VXA.
That may have had some bearing on it.
>I can't decide. All things being equal, personal experience and
>reliability are the only factors that aren't quantified.
It's getting to the 'equal' part that is hard. Part of marketing
is to make sure that nothing is equal and their additions are
better than someone elses.
Ever notice the disclaimers on price guarantees about a company
matching the price on identical products. Since some of the
products they sell are model numbers sold only by that chain there
is no way you can find another model for price comparison.
Physically there may be no difference - just a part number and a
label - but it keeps you from finding something 'identical' if they
want to push it.
>>
>> > 1) Not around for long enough. Will my drive
>> > really last for 10 years or so? It sounds
>> > like the data on the tapes will.
>> Time to ask - how much other computer equipment are you still using
>> 10 years alter.
>I said ten years or so. I rounded 8 years up to ten and
>debated in my mind whether to be specific. I knew that someone
>would see the '10' and think it's extreme enough to comment on.
Sucked me right in on that one!
>I'm still using the mainboard, cpu, case, 3c509b and power supply
>as a Linux firewall. Had to replace the floppy and power
>supply fan. Most of my equipment lasts me 8 years, and
>that makes my really happy. Same Equinox multiport card.
>Same 2940UW adapter. I don't like the SCSI drives, as they
>run hot and loud, but they still run.
And in your Linux system the limiting device is the 3c509b and any
other ISA card you have in the system. ISA cards just don't belong
in modern computers. SCSI drives are industrial strength. Just
what you want for servers. They surely aren't designed for desktop
or deskside computers with the noise levels that some of them
produce.
>After each generation of machine gets retired from
>active service, it gets reincarnated a year or so
>later to be used for one of my younger cousins or
>someone less fortunate.
After "each generation of machine". That would fit 10 months more
than 10 years :-)^32.
>> Longevity in the marketplace is not always a good
>> indicator. Have you not noticed that some companies that were in
>> business for 25 years don't exist. In the fast moving computer
>> world 10 years is an eternity.
>Speed is a false indicator. Change is not always good.
Manufacturers like change to sell new equipment.
>Moore's Law is not necessarily a godsend.
Does the SW get bigger because of Moore's law - or is Moore's law
invoked because the SW gets bigger. Feeping Creaturits gives
'features' that look good in a sales brochure but give things that
are seldom used. In some instances a base system with add-ons
purchased as needed makes good sense. SCO took a lot of flack with
that approach in selling their OS - but it also meant they could
lower the cost to the end-user because of licensing costs. It's a
double-edge sword.
>Longevity is good in the realm of data storage.
Correct.
>> Today's tapes are really amazing. But you were basing Sony above -
>It was improper of me to jump to conclusions about Sony. Nothing
>bugs me like wasting money and I'm still smarting from that Yamaha
>ordeal.
We've all had our share of computer mistakes/mis-steps. Sometimes
the wrong choices can doom a company.
>[munched the history]
>I'm familiar with ceramics. I've seen an automobile engine made out
>of ceramics that weighed 99 lbs and got 80 mpg, on nova I think.
Intesting stuff.
>> > 2) Incredibly expensive tapes. $80 each.
>> > DDS4 tapes are $25.
>> Wow. I remember when 88K floppy disks cost me $6.00 EACH. That's
>> $60 for a box of 10 or 880K. "Incredibly expensive" is only
>> relative. So the VXA tapes are 3 times more expensive than the
>> DDS-4.
>It's not that they are three times the cost of the
>DDS4, it's that they are 15 times the cost of my
>DDS1's.
DDS1s really don't have much place in anything more than a hobby
machine anymore. A few years back I bought 50 of them at under
$2.00 for use in audio recording. All used ONE TIME. That one
time was to duplicate the tapes. So I have 50 tapes - and about
2/3 were labeled HP/UX Install. Good for audio as they are all
60meter [120 minute] tapes - and the DDS2 - 90meter [180 minute]
could cause jamming on older audio machines because of the thinner
base.
But DDS2 will back up faster thus you put fewer overall hours on
the tape drive using DDS2 than DDS1 - and everthinig is rated
on MTBF - not on meters of tape over the heads.
>I bought my DDS1 drive for $800 and have paid $5
>a tape the whole life of the drive. The VXA
>is around $800 and it's tapes are $80.
One pass Maxell's are $18.50 box of 10. Go to www.tape.com and get
the number. You'll probably take to Art Munson. A good guy.
He got tired of the music scene in LA about 10 years ago and moved
to the Nashville area. DDS tapes are used by a large number of
audio DAT users as the tapes are more reliablve. The big
difference is audio DAT tapes are desinged to play from one end
to the other, while DDS have a lot of stop/go [shoeshine/backhitch]
and the design of DDS is better.
I'm not tied to them in any way but Art and I have had a lot of
email correspondance in the past [when I was more active in audio],
and I think most of my dwindling number of SCO users get their
tapes from him anymore. He used to be 'cassette house' years ago
when he duplicated tapes for major companies for distbuting 'test
pressings' for approval.
A reall 'good guy' and they are sometimes hard to find in this
business.
Bob Meyers
"Matt Schalit" <msch...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.UW2.4.33.01073...@yoda.schalit.net...
> But if the Sony's SDT's are quality,
> then I have no problem telling anybody who'll listen.
> That's why I asked if they were better and why. I
> have no problem buying an ES receiver from Sony,
> that's for sure. I trust Sony for audio items.
> I'm inclined to trust companies like HP, which
> makes good calculators, printers, and tape drives,
> for computer items.
Oh make no mistake about it, some Sony tape drives will fail. I have had
them fail, along with HP, WangDAT, Wangtek, Seagate, on and on. That is
where the Sony 3-year, 24/7 overnight replacement warranty comes in handy.
- bill -
As I found to my dismay the 24/7 warranty from Sony is for the first
year. When I sent in a drive in year 2 it too 5 months. Now,
admittedly they appear to have lost the drive and the "repaired" drive
was a Wangtek, so they did replace it with a refurbished drive, but . .
.
--
-bill-
Technical Service Systems - bi...@TechServSys.com
Bob Meyers
"- bill -" <bi...@TechServsys-garbage.com> wrote in message
news:3b690819$0$93664$2c3e...@news.voyager.net...
> As I found to my dismay the 24/7 warranty from Sony is for the first
> year. When I sent in a drive in year 2 it too 5 months. Now,
> admittedly they appear to have lost the drive and the "repaired" drive
> was a Wangtek, so they did replace it with a refurbished drive, but . .
> .
You are absolutely right. My mistake. And Sony is not even for 3 years, 2
years parts and labor, 1 year 24/7 replacement. I have purchased most of my
Sony drives through Micron, with a server. And they do cover it fully for
3 years.
I think HP had a three year, but they want you to pay freight. That may have
changed now too.
If I got a Wangtek replacement for a Sony drive I would be real upset too.
Brian K. White
> >that be the case, and continue to read whatever is salvageable.
> >I believe each piece of data is actually written multiple
> >times/places on the tape.
>
> Probably the best way to describe the Ecrix is that it is more like
> storing the data in packets instead of a bit stream. Since data is
> not written in an angular stripe acoss the tape put in multiple
> small packets the date is in smaller pieces which is assembled.
> Think along the lines sectors on a disk.
or TCP/IP
--
Brian K. White -- br...@aljex.com -- http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO Prosper/FACTS AutoCAD #callahans Satriani