Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!know!samsung!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!lgl@milton.u.washington.edu
From: lgl@milton.u.washington.edu (Laurence Lundblade)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Exabyte (8mm) vs DAT (4mm)
Message-ID: <5110@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 15 Jul 90 22:14:53 GMT
Sender: lgl@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 18

Our group here at UW have decided to go with 4mm because it seems to us it's
the up and coming technology. Some of the reasons we decided this were that
the published bit error rates are something like 100 times lower with DAT, 
the DAT transport mechanism is simpler, there for less likely to break, 
and all the big players are siding with DAT (Sony,Phillips, DEC, HP..).
As far as I know Exabyte is the only one making 8mm drives. I think they
DAT drives fit the 5" form factor if not the 3.5" so we could see them 
on PC's and such. 

My comments are based on reading and no practical experience as we've
a hard time actually getting one. DEC just keeps saying "real soon now.".
Anyway, there's obviously a lot of 8mm drives out that people are happy
with and a few 4mm that haven't got any complaints yet. we'll see what the
future brings.

Laurence Lundblade                       206-543-5617
  lgl@cac.washington.edu
     Networks and Distributed Computing, U of Washington, Seattle