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From: burzio@mmlai.UUCP (Tony Burzio)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: DEC to go with 4mm DAT technology ...
Summary: Tapes & Reliability
Keywords: 4mm DAT
Message-ID: <613@mmlai.UUCP>
Date: 15 Nov 89 00:48:09 GMT
References: <12646@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <4413@itivax.iti.org>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Martin Marietta Labs, Baltimore, MD
Lines: 21

In article <4413@itivax.iti.org>, scs@itivax.iti.org (Steve Simmons) writes:
> pursue 8mm technology.  There are very few disks in the world that
> one cannot back up on a single 8mm tape, while even Dec (;-)) has
> drives too large for a 4mm.  Exabyte is announcing a larger capacity
> second-generation drive as we speak, while 4mm is brand-new technology.
> Most of our cost of backups is operator time.  4mm buys us nothing,
> flat, zippo.  Feh.

I don't know about you, but our 8mm drive doesn't last long between
repairs.  In any event, the 4mm drives will eventually store much
larger amounts of data.  You can also look for autochanger units
so 4 or more tapes can be strung together in one backup.  There must be
some reason why the major vendors (DEC HP etc) are backing the
4mm tapes, but of course they won't say till they have one of their
own to sell :-)

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Tony Burzio               * Brrr...  Getting cold.
Martin Marietta Labs      *
mmlai!burzio@uunet.uu.net *
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