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From: jeremy@misadel.oz (Jeremy Begg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Does DEC not like Exabyte?
Message-ID: <12985@misadel.oz>
Date: 23 Mar 90 13:35:48 GMT
Organization: Management Information Systems, Adelaide, South Australia
Lines: 30

I have just been reading the March 16 edition of "Computerworld Australia"
which discusses the Exabyte drive and DEC's opinion and reaction.  The
article says:

        "DEC claims the Exabyte system is not safe enough for DEC to
         endorse or include with DEC systems.  According to DEC's
         marketing manager for storage, Tom Gayford, DEC tested the
         Exabyte system in the US and found it to be unreliable on
         the smaller VMS machines...the Exabyte system system was
         reliable only on Unix machines."

This seems a rather strange state of affairs; do they mean it worked on the
larger VMS machines, or more likely, tested the Exabyte only as a means of
providing a backup device for their workstations?  I was aware that people
were having trouble getting their Exabytes to work on their VAXstation
3100s, but I believe that these problems are fixed in the latest Exabyte
and are further reduced by VMS 5.3 which provides a better SCSI driver.

Does anyone from DEC, or anyone else in the know, have anything to say on,
or expand upon, Mr Gayford's comments?  Having bought a VS3100 myself I am
currently thinking about backup options.  The thought of spending each week
loading 200 floppy disks does not really excite me :-(

        Jeremy Begg

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