#Tape Drives
13 messages in this thread
Can anyone reccomend a good, relatively inexpensive tape drive? I
have a tape drive that has not given me a reliable backup in a long
time and I am getting nervous! I don't want to spend any mony
'tho…<g> Any good expirences out there?
for the least money and most compatibility, I'd recommend a Colorado
250 – about $179 for internal one. It's slow and the capacity is
pretty pathetic for animation, but the price is right. After that a
good DAT drive would be the most cost effective for huge capacity for
the money – 2/4gb (or more) for $1k. I have a used a DAT 1.2gb (old
model) for a year or two and it was fine until it started smoking.
Some kind of short circuit effect.
There is a real reason to get an Exebyte drive for the capability to
put your animaitons to tape thru an Abekus. I would give you more
info regarding which drives where necessary, but I havn't heard from
anyone with my message. You may want to follow my thread Which
Exebyte for Abekus.
I think the drive you want ins the 8500 model. I think I remember
that from a previous thread. That drive would be nice (5GB) but is
too expesive to fit in right now…
The 8500 is currently being phased out and replaced by the half
height, hardware compression capable 8505. These units are
interchangeable as far as Abekas and ASDG drivers are concerned.
I'd love to hear more about the Exabyte drive solotion, or any other
tape solution. My feeling at the moment is that I'd get an Exabyte
8505 if I had the spare cash, but I don't, at least not until I've
sold my house.
I don't think you'll be disappointed when you finally do get an
Exabyte. I would suggest Exabyte over all other tape drives because,
as I stated in my message to Ang, it is the only drive directly,
officially supported by the Abekas A60 series DDR.
I'm not sure I fully understand your last message, but I'll take a
stab at it anyway <g>.
The Exabyte is the ONLY tape drive supported directly through the SCSI
II port on the Abekas A60 series units. There is documentation in
the Abekas manual instructing the user how to archive and restore
images (the latter being the relevant operation in this case). I may
be wrong about the Exabyte being the only tape drive unofficially
supported, but I don't have any opportunity to experiment with these
things, I've got to pay @ $220 per hour, so time's a wastin'
otherwise.
The 8505 (new model, 3.5", with hardware compression) is supported by
the ASDG driver and the Abekas units. There is no reason to buy an
8500 as this model is twice as big, slower, discontinued, and costs
the same.
What I was getting at was wether the 8200 and its various forms was
supported (quite a bit less expensive that the 8500).
The comment regarding the SCSI to disk transfer is in referece to
something I read somewhere. It implied that there were some software
drivers for the Exebyte's that allowed you to do a _direct_ disk to
tape transfer from another SCSI disk .. on the same controller ..
without barely bothering the host computer. There were some
outragous transfer rates associated with this also. I can't remember
if it was Corel or one of Exebytes drivers.
Wow. If you find out about this host "bypass" software, let me know.
Sounds great!
One thing to check real quick is that the tape sensor light in your
unit isn't dirty; use some rubbing alcohol to clean it… this has
solved some problems I have run into. Currently, we drag one of those
Colorado Trakker external drives around from machine to machine; they
hook up through the parrallel port and are substantially faster than
the internal version, but also more expensive. Our older internal
Colorado's have been reliable for years, (remember the cleaning).
Hey John, don't use rubbing alcohol as it leaves too much residue and
that will eventually become a gunk you won't be able to get rid off.
Use Isopropyl Alcohol instead. It's 99.9 percent water free and
extremely volatile. Just don't breath it for too long otherwise you
will be saying things here you'd rather not! <g>
Yea, you're right. Colo. Mem. Systems sent us a fax detailing the
procedure, and they do specify isopropyl alcohol. I mistakingly used
them interchangeably; thanks for the clarification.