Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!rice!sun-spots-request
From: ballen@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Bruce Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: using 60 Mbye tapes in 150 Mbyte drive
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <1990Oct7.213637.19988@rice.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 90 21:30:00 GMT
Sender: sun-spots-request@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Originator: spots@walhalla.rice.edu
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 318, message 11

I have a SparcStation with a 150Mbyte desktop tape drive unit.  This unit
is supposed to be used with DC6150 1/4 inch tape cartridges, of which I
have a reasonable supply.  I also have large numbers of DC600, DC300, and
DC450 tapes from my old Sun 3/60.  These tapes are fairly useless to me
now ... or so I thought.  

On a whim, I decided to try using one of the old (60 Mybte) tapes in the
new tape drive, which writes in a 150 Mbyte format.  It worked fine.  I
wrote 140 Mbytes of stuff to the tape, read it back onto disk and did a
diff -r to check that all the data had been correctly saved.  It was all
there, intact.

So to get to the point - how many of you are using old tapes with the new
drive?  Have you had good/bad experiences?  What is your advice?  Please,
no long winded replies along the lines of "your data is priceless, throw
out your old tapes and buy 50 more DC6150's, etc.  I won't use old tapes
for my system backups.
				Bruce Allen