Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!pyramid!csg
From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.pyramid
Subject: Re: 8mm drives on Pyramid
Message-ID: <140531@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Date: 10 Jan 91 01:51:27 GMT
References: <1991Jan9.015217.1244@swbatl.sbc.com>
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 19

>I'm not impressed with... Pyramid's speed at providing a reasonable high
>density backup alternative.

There's a simple reason for that: the people in Pyramid's peripherals group
who were evaluating 8mm didn't think the technology was sufficiently reliable
that it would be wise for the company to support it. Instead, they threw in
with RDAT, which at the time vendors (like HP and Sony) were promising would
be available Real Soon. Instead, it took over a year. I don't know what the
current status is of the RDAT drives, and someone may even be looking at 8mm
again. Hassle your salescritter.

(Regarding reliability of 8mm: It wasn't a question of Megatape vs. Exabyte
vs. anyone else; they all use the same Sony drive, and they all wore out
and/or the tapes become unreadable after a few months of simulated production
use. Don't ask me any more; I didn't run the tests, and it's been too long
since I looked at the results. And there are definitely lots of very happy
8mm users out there.)

<csg>