Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!psgrain!news.uoregon.edu!news.dacom.co.kr!usenet.seri.re.kr!news.cais.net!news.jsums.edu!gatech!news.mathworks.com!fu-berlin.de!cs.tu-berlin.de!informatik.uni-bremen.de!nordwest.pop.de!uniol!uni-erlangen.de!news.th-darmstadt.de!hrz-ws11.hrz.uni-kassel.de!phase23.dinoex.sub.org!citylink.dinoex.sub.org!peter
From: peter@citylink.dinoex.sub.org (Peter Much)
Subject: Re: Tape drive for backup.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Organization: Buero fuer Sektenforschung und Qualitaetspruefung in der Esoterik
Message-ID: <DpF1uC.HHH@citylink.dinoex.sub.org>
References: <Doy3z5.K2o.0.raindrop.seaslug.org@raindrop.seaslug.org> <315AFF62.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org> <4jou17$9bk@cibnor2.cibnor.conacyt.mx>
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 01:08:35 GMT
Lines: 44
In article <4jou17$9bk@cibnor2.cibnor.conacyt.mx>,
Larry Miller [DT] <lmiller@cibnor.cibnor.conacyt.mx> wrote:
>Jordan K. Hubbard (jkh@FreeBSD.org) wrote:
>
>: I think that for backup, where you'd like the media to also be somewhat
>: robust and not self-destruct occasionally (4mm DAT is pretty fragile
>: stuff, I've found!) then there's really only one choice: An 8mm Exabyte
>: drive.
>
>Jordan, out of curiousity, what sorts of failures have you personally seen
>with 4mm DAT?
Since this is discussed publicly here, I will take the chance
to report a strange event i observed when a friend came by with
such a drive to plug it on and make a backup.
After inserting the cassette, the drive stayed unaccessible from soft-
ware. Then, the drive spit out not only the cassette but also some
metal springs and small plastic parts. It reminded me of a bad comic.
We examined it all and found out, that the tape inside the cassette
had got defective, i.e. the tape was drawn between reel and case.
The springs and plastic parts had before been the drive's two mounting
points that go inside the cassette to wind the tape (don't know english
term for Wickelteller). And all together it looked like these mounting
points _should_ break in case of tape damage, maybe to keep away damage
from other parts.
But we still got nowhere a repair kit for the drive.(*)
Since DAT-cassette technology is not essentially different from audio-
compact-cassette technology, I could imagine older cassettes to go
defective this way more often...
But maybe one should not expect high quality from DAT-tapes, but simply
the cheapest avaliable reliable tape technology...
(*) If anybody knows anything, I'm eager to hear!
Peter
--
UNIX is a religion. Religions cannot be trademarked.
Write to: Peter Much * Koelnische Str. 22 * D-34117 Kassel * +49-561-774961
peter@citylink.dinoex.sub.org * much@hrz.uni-kassel.de