Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 07:01:42 -0700 From: "Ron 'The Insane One' Rosson" <insane@oneinsane.net> To: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Strong opinions, anyone? Message-ID: <19980701070142.A29116@oneinsane.net> In-Reply-To: <199807010117.PAA20095@pegasus.com>; from Richard Foulk on Tue, Jun 30, 1998 at 03:17:18PM -1000 References: <grog@lemis.com> <199807010117.PAA20095@pegasus.com>
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I use the Exabyte 8200 and 8500's and I wouldn't trade them in for the world. They work great. Ron On Tue, Jun 30, 1998 at 03:17:18PM -1000, Richard Foulk wrote: > } > There have been little glitches along the way. When they first came > } > out, a very long time ago, they had a few problems here and there. > } > > } > They're quite solid now. > } > } Right. The newer Exabytes are a whole lot better than the old ones. > > The last six or eight years worth of 8200's have been solid too. > > } In particular, it appears that the drum life has been extended by an > } order of magnitude. The 8200 is not a newer Exabyte, and if you buy a > } refurbished one, you're running the risk of drum failure in the short > } term. [...] > > The newer ones are better. The 8200's are way cheap and fairly robust, > especially when compared to their competition in that price/capacity segment. > > } [...] Note also that the drive firmware hides a lot of the retries. > > Bull. > > The drive hides the retries by default. It is possible to query the > drive for the soft error count. That's were you see the incredible > redundancy of this design. > > About a decade ago when they got most of the bugs out of the 8200 we > tried a number of different brands of tape. The way-cheap junk brands > would sometimes have hundreds of soft errors in 2 Gigs. The Sony tapes > would show no soft errors at all! > > Zero. > > Crummy, worn-out tapes that work poorly even for video will still work > for data on the Exabyte. (Not that you'd really want to use them.) > > } > I like being able to buy tapes at the corner drug store if I need to. > } > Unlike the newer, higher capacity Exabytes the 8200's were designed to > } > use consumer video tapes. (The newer ones require `data quality' tapes.) > } > } You can set the new ones to use consumer tapes, too, I think. [...] > > > No you can't. Exabyte is fairly emphatic about that. The data quality > tapes are much smoother and cause much less head wear. > > } [...] Since > } the tapes are no cheaper, and the dropout rate is much higher, I can't > } see any reason to do this. I strongly recommend buying data grade tapes. > > The video tapes are *way* cheaper. The good Sony tapes are available from > various discount stores for around $3. > > } > I've got some eight and 10-year old tapes written on various drives > } > that are still readable today. Even readable on the new high-capacity > } > drives. Amazing. > } > } That doesn't surprise me. > } > } > No doubt there will soon be some higher capacity drives that are > } > as reliable and as inexpensive to use (media is part of the cost.) > } > Just not yet. > } > } What about DDS-2? You can get up to 7 GB on a 120m tape, and the > } units cost in the order of $700 new. DDS-3 will store still more, but > } they're also more expensive. > > Out of my price range. Even before you look at media prices. > > } > } In general, I'd say that the serious (as opposed to high-end) tape > } market is dominated by helical scan units based on consumer cartridge > } formats. Exabyte is based on 8mm video tape, and DDS is based on DAT > } (digital audio tape). In each case, the medium cost is low and the > } data capacity is between 2 and 14 GB. Both systems offer data > } compression, which in my experience (including backing up a lot of > } gzipped files) gives a storage improvement of about 90%. DDS drives > } tend to be cheaper, possibly because of the number of manufacturers > } out there. The reliability of *all* helical scan drives used to be > } barely acceptable, and has since got much better: as a result, I don't > } recommend buying older helical scan devices. > } > > All 8mm drives are format and compression compatible assuming the same > or greater capacity on the readers side. This is not the case with DDS. > A number of incompatibilities exist. > > I know I can trade data with someone else with an 8mm drive. Chances are > two 4mm drives cannot. > > And average reliability on DDS is about even with the aging 8200. DDS > doesn't have the real estate to provide the redundancy that 8mm does. > > > Richard > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message -- -------------------------------------------------------- Ron Rosson ... and a UNIX user said ... The InSaNe One rm -rf * insane@oneinsane.net and all was null and void -------------------------------------------------------- It's so nice to be insane, nobody asks you to explain. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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