From owner-freebsd-hardware  Thu Jan  9 14:59:57 1997
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From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk)
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In-Reply-To: Simon Reading <aat81@dial.pipex.com>
       "Recommend 8mm exabyte drives?" (Jan  9,  6:58pm)
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Subject: Re: Recommend 8mm exabyte drives?
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} 
} I'm considering 8mm exabyte as a (?more reliable) alternative to 4mm DAT.
} 
} Would you recommend these drives?
} 

I've been using them for many years with good results.  I have the $300
2Gig unit at home which works well with $3 Sony video tapes.  And I use
a number of 14Gig units at work, including a two-drive ten-tape juke-box
(SparcStorage Library) which all work fairly well.  We stick with official
data quality tapes for the higher capacity units.

Mostly, you just need to clean them regularly.  And if you use them
heavily the heads will wear out -- though apparently much less quickly
than on DAT drives.

There are also fewer compatibility problems between different drives
with Exabytes than with DATs.  Fewer different formats.


Richard