Advice on change of tape drive please.

[Karl Denninger]

In article <3438 at sud509.ed.ray.com> heiser at tdw201.ed.ray.com writes:
>In article <PEDA.90Nov21164524 at simplicity.Stanford.EDU> peda at simplicity.Stanford.EDU (Bill Codding) writes:
>>
>>  b) Archive says you can use either DC600A or DC6150 on their QIC-150.
>>  They say the physical medium is the same, so no wear problems.  However,
>>  the 6150 has an additional capstan (roller) and a wider opening in the
>>  plastic housing.  The tape identification marks tell the tape drive
>>  to write more tracks on the 6150, since the housing hole allows more head
>>  clearance.  Thus, 120MB on a 600A, and 150MB on a 6150.
>
>I have been unable to write to 600A tapes in my Archive Viper 2150S.  I
>have had mixed results trying to READ 600A tapes in the same drive --
>I suspect it is a Unix problem rather than a drive problem -- the troubles
>involved tar and cpio, but dd worked OK.  I have been using 6150 tapes
>on a regular basis.

You're drive is hosed, or you're not using ISC.

I have used a 2150S Archive drive with ISC 2.0.2 now for almost a year.  I
run my backups daily to DC600A tapes, since I have a ton of these, they're
still good, and I can't see a reason to scrap perfectly good media.

I get 125MB on each tape.  Tastes great, less filling :-)

No problems with either backup or restore, and I've had to restore many
times.

--
Karl Denninger	AC Nielsen
kdenning at ksun.naitc.com
(708) 317-3285
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