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From: Bob Kemp <rsk@ecs.southampton.ac.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: FAQ: 386BSD/NetBSD Compatible tape drive list
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Date: 5 Aug 1993 05:09:38 -0700
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Approved: 386bsd-announce-request@agate.berkeley.edu
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These tape drives have been reported as working (or not working) on
386BSD or NetBSD, either in articles on USENET or in response to
previous postings. If you know any more details, want to point out
errors, know another tape drive works (or doesn't), have any
suggestions for additions/changes to the FAQ, or anything else
useful, please send your reports to:
andrew@oti.on.ca (Andrew Cornwall) or
rsk@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bob Kemp)
PLEASE HELP TO UPDATE THIS LIST BY PROVIDING COMMENTS AND NEW
INFO. IN RETURN, WE WILL POST UPDATES AND TRY TO MAKE THE LIST
AVAILABLE TO ANYONE INTERESTED.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:
This list is not guaranteed to be 100% correct.
We don't know much about tape drives as yet, so
we are only collating information provided by others.
By getting feedback on this list, we hope to improve
it into an FAQ.
EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THANK-YOU:
Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this list. Without
your help, it wouldn't exist!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Additions:
Archive 2525-S
CIPHER MicroStreamer F880 (1600bpi, 9 track PERTEC interface)
Changes:
Cipher ST150-S
Tandberg 3660
Notes: Update to Julian's SCSI code in patchkit has also
cured (some/all?) problems with the Archive 2525-S
-------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------
MANUFACTURER CONTACTS:
Archive is a Maynard company bought by Conner
Sales: +1 714 641 0279
Technical: +1 800 227 6296
[informant: mq8qc@qcunix.acc.qc.edu (KARAGEORGIOU ANGELOS)]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
COMPATIBLE TAPE DRIVES:
Format of each entry is as follows:
Name: {name of the device; if you're reporting, please be as
specific as possible}
Capacity: {Maximum size of the device}
Approx Cost: {Roughly what you paid}
Interface: {How it talks to the machine - SCSI, PC bus, etc}
Controllers: {What controller you're using - Adaptec 1542B, etc}
Informant: {Who says it works}
Comments: {Anything good or bad you feel like saying}
Name: Archive 2060
Capacity: 60MB
Approx Cost: US$200
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542b, Adaptec 1742a
Informant: duncan@zycad.com
Comments: no observed problems when used with julian's drivers.
works fine with 1542b/1742a
Name: Archive 2150
Capacity: 250Mb
Approx cost: US$350-500
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542b, Adaptec 1742a
Informant: ejh@slustl.slu.edu (Eric J. Haug)
admerlev@cip.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de (me 8-))
duncan@zycad.com
jfieber@sophia.smith.edu
Comments: works well with both the driver in the distribution
kernel and julians' SCSI drivers. [ejh]
nice device!!!, works like a charm, tar w/ original
scsi-driver plus variable block length patch, under DOS:
GTAR, ASPIBIN (ASPI-TAR), PCTOOLS 8.0, COREL-SCSI
works fine with julian's drivers and 1542b/1742a
[admerlev/duncan]
and with Adaptec 1542C + Julian's SCSI drivers [jfieber]
Name: Archive 2525-S (Firmware Rev. 25462-007 - seems to be important [nbladt])
Capacity: QIC-24 (?), QIC-120, QIC-150, QIC-525
Approx Cost: ca. 1000,- DM (about US$ 600 ?)
Interface: SCSI-1
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B, Adaptec 1542C, Adaptec 1742A, Adaptec 1742B
Informant: nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch (Norbert Bladt)
hm@hcshh.hcs.de (Hellmuth Michaelis)
loodvrij%cyb@fredbox.cts.com (Bruce J. Keeler)
Comments: In contrary to what my dealer told me, it can read and WRITE
QIC-150 tapes. Didn't have a chance to try QIC-120, or QIC-60,
etc. yet.
I am using 386bsd-0.1 (still with the first patchkit and
all updates from Julian for his fabulous SCSI-driver kit)
Sorry, no experience with the original driver because
that driver doesn't work with the 1742A. [nbladt]
Worked with Julian's driver out of the box. [hm]
Seems to stream just fine with tar under stock NetBSD-0.8.
Can't seem to get restore to work properly with it, or
get it to read any other capacity of tape, but that may be
my fault.... [loodvrij]
Name: Cipher Model 540
Capacity: 45M/60M (probably/hopefully)
Approx Cost: Loaned to me in `vintage appearance' (Much dust) - No idea !
Interface: SCSI 1
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: Julian Stacey <stacey@guug.de>
Comments: Shows promise, Cant yet call it truly usefull though:
The Good Bit:
I have seen it stream constantly on 386bsd.
The Bad Bit:
I can't use it as a usefull drive because it keeps
dropping out with errors.
The fault does not lie in the media, & most probably
not with external power supply or scsi cable -
I'm working on it.
Name: CIPHER MicroStreamer F880 (1600bpi, 9 track PERTEC interface)
Capacity: ???
Approx Cost: $5000 for the drive in 1985
$1000 for protocol Converter 1992
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec AHA-1542A to NCR ADP-53 to tape drive
Informant: mike@scrooge.uoregon.edu (Mike Hoffman)
Comments: It is FAST, reads tape about the same speed as rewind.
The SCSI controller runs the 9 track drive thru the
converter and an Archive 2060S 60mb Cartridge tape
drive directly. After putting in the current
patches and reading the PERTEC Specs it was almost
"plug and play". The ADP-53 is a protocol converter
from/to SCSI/PERTEC, purchased from Laguna Data
Systems (see Byte Magazine).
Problems:
mt does not seem to be of much use. Forward spacing
the 9 track tape is an iffy job (skipping the label
on a labeled tape). dd now does this (skip=1).
I always get the error 'cannot prevent/allow'. This
is not a big deal (prevent or allow removal of
tape).
dd does not handle cr/lf at all well. Could be all
the protocol conversions or gnu dd just doesn't do
it. All files are read in as one line(no CR Lf
etc). The blocking and conversion options have no
effect on line length. Conversion from EBCDIC to
ASCII works fine. A small program to break up the
file solves the long line problem.
Name: Cipher ST-150F
Capacity: 150Mb
Approx cost: US$300 (incl. interface)
Interface: QIC-02
Controllers: Cipher
Informant: hideki@isl.rdc.toshiba.co.jp (YOSHIDA Hideki)
Comments: works well with blocksize <= 4b
Name: Cipher ST150-S
Capacity: QIC-24(read only), QIC-120, QIC-150
Approx Cost: 1300,- DM (long ago ..)
Interface: SCSI (better SCSI-I or CCS)
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B, 1742
Informant: Hellmuth Michaelis (hm@hcshh.hcs.de)
Comments: This drive responds with empty strings if asked for
for it's vendors name and model.
It has a strange format of the mode sense/set command
blocks.
By default, it reports a soft error back to the host
which makes it a bit hard to work with.
Problems solved with next release of Julian Elischer's
enhanced SCSI driver (currently beta, July '93).
Someone from Australia reported that there is an upgrade
to SCSI-2 available, but since Cipher was sold to Archive
who was sold to Maynard who was sold to Conner, I could not
verify this.
Name: COMTEK Gigatape 1200 4mm external DAT
Capacity: 1.2 Gb
Approx Cost: US$800
Interface: SCSI 1
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: Rich@rice.edu
Comments: Uses formatted, fixed blocksize tapes. Only
partial success writing about 400Mb so far.
Name: DEC TZ30
Capacity: 96 MB (uses 3M CompacTape cartridges)
Approx cost:
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 154xB
Informant: davidb@otto.bf.rmit.oz.au (David Burren) May 1993
Comments: Works with Julian's SCSI drivers. Console reports "cannot
prevent/allow" but this is not a problem.
This is the native-SCSI half-height version of DEC's
TK50Z drive.
Name: DEC TZ857
Capacity: 18.2 GB (stacker unit with seven 2.6 GB CompacTape
III tapes)
Approx cost: lots
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 154xB
Informant: davidb@otto.bf.rmit.oz.au (David Burren) May 1993
Comments: Works with Julian's SCSI drivers. As with the TZ30,
"cannot prevent/allow" is reported but operation
continues.
As 386bsd has no "mt online" yet, cartridge loading is
done manually, but unloading/advancing is done through
"mt offline" as under Ultrix.
I don't really use this drive, but I had access to it
for a day and tried it out...
Name: Exabyte 8200 8mm
Capacity: 2.2 GB
Approx cost:
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 154xB
Informant: davidb@otto.bf.rmit.oz.au (David Burren) May 1993
Comments: Works perfectly with Julian's SCSI drivers.
I use it all the time for my system dumps and for
exchanging files with other machines.
Name: Hewlett-Packard HP35480A DAT drive
Capacity: 4 GB
Approx Cost: $1400
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: karl@neosoft.com
Comments: Great drive, flawless performance. Requires
variable length tapedrive patches which should be
in the patchkit, but I haven't checked. (They were
submitted around November of '92)
Name: Sankyo ST525
Capacity: 525 Mbyte
Approx Cost: 6000 SEK (US$850)
Interface: SCSI (SCSI-2)
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: jonas@carmen.volvo.se (Jonas Lagerblad)
Comments: everything works allright except for one crash
The SCSI bus seemed hang after running
"dump 0uf - /dev/rsd0a | gzip --best |
dd of=/dev/rst0 bs=64k"
for approx 1 hour. If I skip the compression
everything works perfectly. (I am using Julian's
SCSI driver) 386BSD-0.1 patchkit 0.2 patches 0-110
Name: Tandberg 3600 series
Capacity:
Approx cost:
Interface:
Controllers:
Informant: fredriks@austin.ibm.com (Lars Fredriksen)
Comments: IN DEVELOPMENT. So far I have it working with fixed
and variable block micro code (original Tandberg vs. IBM firmware).
I am adding support for selecting densities for the minor
devices via IOCTLS,as well as setting the fixed blocksize via
IOCTL. This work is almost done, and I will send the driver to
julian. I see him as the distributor of fixes to his own code.
So far I have not had any problems reading 30/60/150/250 Mb tapes.
similarly no problems writing 150/250 Mb tapes.
Name: Tandberg 3660
Capacity: 250Mb
Approx cost:
Interface:
Controllers:
Informant: Per Anders Olausson <pao@cd.chalmers.se>
meidinge@ps2zenger1.informatik.tu-muenchen.de(Thomas Meidinger)
Comments: DC6250, DC6150 (not tested) and DC600A.
Reads and writes DC-6120 as well. [pao]
Name: Tandberg 3820 5 1/4" HH internal QIC 525 SCSI streamer
Capacity: up to 520Mb (depending on media) uncompressed
Approx cost: (I bought mine two years ago--it wasn't cheap :-)
Interface: SCSI-1/2
Controllers: AHA1542B, 1742A, DTC3290
Informant: tmh@first.gmd.de (Thomas M. Hoberg)
stacey@guug.de (Julian Stacey)
lfdavis@com.ibm.austin.netftp (Lou F Davis \(boca\))
Comments: Works well with both the driver in the distribution kernel
and julians' SCSI drivers. Reads all QIC media (tested
QIC 40/60/120/150/525) Writes QIC 120/150/250/320/525
(120/150/525 tested) Includes a 256k buffer. 2 rw
speeds: 83k/s for QIC<320, 200k/sec for 320+
Occasionally the file system can't keep up at
200k/sec on backups (small files), somewhat more often
on restores. The drive can directly seek to any block
on the tape, so in theory at least with the
appropriate device drive you could mount a file system
on it (you better keep fragmentation low :-) As you
can guess, I am EXTREMELY happy with it.
[tmh]
The Good Bit:
It streams constantly without error (~40mins for 525M
write @ 60K blocking). Tape drive shares bus with 3
SCSI-2 Seagate drives also OK with a SCSI-1 Micropolis 1684-7.
The Bad Bit:
We (several us of using these TDC3820s on different hardware)
have undergone an eerom + eprom autodensity upgrade to allow
150M writes (previously could only read 150M tapes +r&w 525M);
this known as Revision 04908, Done 92 08 28.
There is some kind of block size problem that prevents
us reliably exchanging 525M tapes, 150M seems OK,
problem is tape hardware oriented I believe,
not 386BSD specific.
Problem pre-existed the 150M write capability upgrade.
A friend with same 386bsd + TDC3820 + 1542A cant read my tapes,
neither can a PCS (M68000 based) computer with a TDC3820
[stacey]
We paid DM1000 (~$625) about 1-1/2 years ago. This was a very
special price, and I estimate that the actual cost would be
(very) approximately 50% more (~$950).
I've used it with an Adaptec 1742A, a DTC3290 (caching 1542B
emulation), and a Mylex ?376? (caching, but only under DOS)
SCSI controllers. It doesn't just stream, it screams. I've
never seen a streamer that just streams without a pause,
rewind or such. This one does (not to say that the Tandberg
is the sole reason for this).
[lfdavis]
Name: WangDAT 3200
Capacity: 2Gb (up to 8Gb w/compression) on a 90 meter tape
Approx cost: US$1200-$1300 approx
Interface: SCSI
Controllers:
Informant: conklin@talisman.kaleida.com (J.T. Conklin)
cgd@postgres.Berkeley.edu
Comments: Works great with Julian's SCSI drivers and an Adaptec 1742...
(I use it to do my dumps, and I've actually checked and made
sure the restores work... 8-) [cgd]
Name: Wangtek 5099EN
Capacity:
Approx cost:
Interface:
Controllers:
Informant: Original 386bsd.FAQ
Comments:
Name: Wangtek 5099SC24, this is a QIC drive (same mechanical drive
as 5099EN24) with a QIC24 to SCSI board by wangtek full height
Capacity: 60Mb w/DC600A, 100Mb w/DC6250
Approx cost: Used as is drives US$25.00/each, refurbs ~US$100.00
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: rgrimes@agora.rain.com
Comments: works well with both the driver in the distribution
kernel and julians' SCSI drivers. Very old full height
driver readily availiable in the surplus market. I know
where there are 50 or so of these for $25.00/each as is,
they are pulls from old workstations.
Name: Wangtek 5150EQ
Capacity: 250MB (QIC-150)
Approx cost: 400 UK pounds including software for DOS
Interface: QIC-02
Controllers: Wangtek QIC-02 included
Informant: kd@doc.ic.ac.uk (K J Dryllerakis)
Comments: Works with stock driver. Very very slow but reliable. Funny,
it only seems to work if you use /dev/wt0 instead of /dev/rwt0.
New driver in beta version by micke@dynas.se (Mikael Hybsch).
Name: Wangtek 5150ES
Capacity: 250Mb
Approx cost:
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: berry@max.IN-Berlin.DE (Stefan Behrens)
duncan@zycad.com (Don)
Comments: [With original 0.1 SCSI ...] it streams constantly
and works without any errors. Works with original
as.c driver and with newer drivers from Julian
[eg in patchkit 0.2.4]. [berry]
DOES NOT WORK WITH THE 1742a and 386bsd!!!!!
SCSI driver compatibility problems. [duncan]
NOTE: with the latest patchkit Stefan Behrens [berry]
has reported that Julian's SCSI now works with it.
No update yet on 1742C behaviour.
Name: Wangtek 5525ES
Capacity: 525M
Approx cost: US$600, CDN$1000
Interface: Adaptec 1542B, Adaptec 1742
Controllers: SCSI
Informant: bky@eco.twg.com (Brian Yasaki)
andrew@noware.ocunix.on.ca (Andrew Cornwall)
Comments: Writes QIC120, 150, 250, 525. Reads QIC24 as well
(untested). Works with the distribution kernel.
Name: Wangtek QT60 (aka Tecmar QT60)
Capacity: 60M
Approx cost:
Interface: QIC 02
Informant: tcombs@pacific.urbana.mcd.mot.com (Tim Combs)
Comments: It works although does not stream under 386BSD 0.1
END OF COMPATIBLE TAPE DRIVE LIST
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