Request info on 8mm tape drives

[E. Scott Menter]

Hi.  There is already a wealth of information on 8mm drives in the Sun
Spots archives;  I forget what it's listed under.  I suspect that wnl will
put his two cents in right about here -> [[ Oh, alright.  I think you are
talking about the file that contains information about the Exabyte tape
drive.  That is stored under "sun-spots" as "Exabyte.replies".  It is only
14337 bytes and it can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from the host
"titan.rice.edu" or via the archive server with the request
"send sun-spots Exabyte.replies".  For more information about the archive
server, send a mail message containing the word "help" to the address
"archive-server at rice.edu".  --wnl ]]

As for my experience, I bought 3 Delta Microsystems units from a company
called Peripheral Devices here in NYC.  The Deltas were a bit more
expensive at $4500/unit than the others but came with some nice software
to do backups, get information about the drive, and do diagnostics.

However, the 2 of the units were DOA  and the third rapidly fell way out
of spec with regard to errors.  Delta was very helpful during this time
and shipped me new units, which seem to be a little flaky, but generally
okay.  To be fair, I've seen no other disparaging references to Delta on
the net;  only glowing reviews.  Maybe I live in a high-radiation zone or
something.

The software was a little disappointing.  The backup software is barely
beta test.  The other stuff, and the device drivers, seem to perform
pretty well, however.

Don't buy the tapes from the vendors, by the way.  They want about
$15/tape, and you can get them at your nearest video outlet for $8 or so.

You can contact Delta Micro at (415) 449-6881.

Other vendors include:  Artecon (800) USA-ARTE
Perfect Byte (402) 554-1122
Unison (508) 898-0072
Box Hill (800) 727-3863
...and a cast of thousands

Hope this helps.

Scott Menter, Sr. Network Administrator, Shearson Lehman Hutton
DDN: escott at shearson.com                      UUCP:  uunet!slcpi!escott
                            (212) 528-4858