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From: Martin Renters <martin@tdc.on.ca>
Message-Id: <199610302023.PAA14698@tdc.on.ca>
Subject: Re: SONY DAT DRIVES - NOT SUPPORTED for "UNIX" - BUYER BEWARE !!!
To: jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com (Joe Greco)
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 15:23:48 -0500 (EST)
Cc: rwc@cscfx.sytex.com, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org, iap@vma.cc.nd.edu,
        dclinux@wauug.erols.com
In-Reply-To: <199610301943.NAA26366@brasil.moneng.mei.com> from "Joe Greco" at Oct 30, 96 01:43:42 pm
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> > We just got off the phone with Sony Tech Support re: their SCSI DAT Drive,
> > Model No. SDT-5000/BM & SDT-5200/BM and a problem we were having with a
> > new drive we just received from TechDATA.  Sony said they did not support 
> > any "Unix" operating system, specifically Linux and FreeBSD which were
> > "shareware" (obviously he doesn't know what shareware is).  Unless we wished
> > to discuss problems found on Windows, Windows95, or WindowsNT he could offer
> > no help!!
> 
> I agree with the philosophy of not buying from cruddy vendors with bad
> attitudes, but I will also remind you that the various UNIX variants
> around (both commercial and noncommercial) have typically done a good
> job of supporting hardware despite the manufacturers.

I don't know about the SDT-5[02]00/BM model, but I have used just the
SDT-5[02]00 model without any problems since the FreeBSD 1.1 days.  About
the only problem I've noticed is that if you have a tape written with
hardware compression, it couldn't be read if the jumper on the back of the
drive isn't set for compression.  There are SCSI commands to enable/disable
this independent of the jumper setting, but the FreeBSD driver doesn't use
them as far as I know.  I do have a SCSI hardware manual for the drive,
although I no longer have the drive (it was a loaner drive).

Martin