Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!newspump.sol.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!miwok!usenet From: ekilroy@orbitsw.com (E.A. Kilroy, III) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: scsi tape recommendations Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 08:24:43 GMT Organization: North Bay Network, Inc. news server - not responsible for content Lines: 57 Message-ID: <53nkk8$etp@miwok.nbn.com> References: <29f_9610110039@caamora.caamora.com.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: eak.orbitsw.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 jlm@caamora.caamora.com.au (jonathan l michaels) wrote: >this leaves me with a freebsd box without a tape drive, does anybody have any >recommendations. something along the lines of the tandberg would be nice, i >have a library to maintain so a qic-525 type that would read and write one or >two gig format would be ideal. though, i'd be interested to hear from people >who have used the sony dats (4 gig uncompressed). Hi. I'm using HP SCSI DDS (DAT) drives and they really are plug-n-play. I've got DDS-1 non-compressing (90m=2GB), compressing (90m~=4GB), and DDS-2 compressing (120m~=8GB) drives that I swap back and forth from HP3000, HP9000, NTServer, and FreeBSD depending on what I need at the time. Lots of data in an itty bitty space, but a word of warning: NEVER TRUST ANYTHING IMPORTANT TO ONLY ONE DDS TAPE AND ALWAYS VERIFY THE TAPE AFTER WRITING IT. That's more than a word, isn't it? I don't know if QIC, 8mm or others are much better or worse, but DDS (DAT) has got to be near the bottom of the pile. The HP drives are some of the best and do automatic Read After Write (RAW) which some drives don't. I think the basic problem is that the DDS format RELIES on error correction logic while WRITING instead of only as an emergency recovery method for reading. Add to this that I haven't seen a drive/driver yet that reports any type of write retry info back to the system like used to be available on 9-track (at least HPIB bus drives) and you've got data loss just wating to happen; and it does. I've seen DDS tapes with 10% RAW errors while creating a tape and nobody knows (stats are actually kept at the front of each tape; that's part of difference between old DAT and DDS Media Recognition). I specifically saved one for grins and it wasn't readable a month later!!! It had verified too! In general, the DLT's might be the best format these days, but I can't prove that; just started using them, and they're way too expensive for personal use anyway, but they FLY! Well, enough out of me. Don't discount DDS because of what I've said, just be aware of what you are dealing with. I backup machines every day w/DDS drives. Unless you MUST have the capacity, I'd stay away from the new 120m DDS2 drives until they've been in use long enough to tell what the media reliability is like. >can anybody recommend a real simple solution, you know just set the jumpers to >id4 plug it into the scsi chain and reboot the machine. >regards ... jonathan >EMail: jlm@caamora.com.au >-- >Caamora (InterNet Services) __________________________________________ >PO Box 2036 >Clovelly West NSW 2031 Australia data +61 2 96659249 >------------------------------------------------- <jlm@caamora.com.au>