Reliability Exabyte tapes

[Norman Soley]

In article <929 at dri500.dri.nl> slootman at dri.nl (Paul Slootman) writes:
>Someone said: (I'm afraid I didn't get the original, we're new to news)
>> The consensus was that the most reliable tapes were Exabyte's and
>> SONY P6-120MPs.  Re the latter, there was a consensus that 1 out of
>> apx. every 40-50 cartridges or so were found to be defective.  Our
>> relatively short-term experience (apx. 7 months) has con- firmed this.
>
>I've heard this before. I only wonder whether defective tapes are
>detected right away, or only after having been used for some time. I
>prefer the first...

I've been told that there are differences in the mechanical contruction inside 
the cartridge between D8 tapes and "regular" 8mm video tapes and that the video
tapes can break internally under very light shocks and that this is the reason
the failure rate when these are used as data tapes. 

It is also worth pointing out that both Sony and Maxell are selling D8 type
tapes, they cost about twice what the P6-120MPs cost but I've yet to have one
jam.

       Norman Soley - Systems Administrator - Oracle Corporation Canada
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	      "These opinions are mine, not the company's"