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From: rbemben@ENIGMA.PRIME.COM (Rich Bemben (617) 275-1800 x4834)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Prime 8mm tape experience?
Message-ID: <9103261355.AA06969@enigma.Prime.COM>
Date: 26 Mar 91 13:55:34 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Lines: 25


    This may have been posted already, if so, my apologies.
    I'm looking for information on using the Exabyte 8mm tape drive as a
backup device for Prime computers.  Specifically, we're looking into
replacing 9-track 6250 bpi tapes with 8mm cartridges.  I know that the 8mm
carts hold a great deal more data, but I've heard unpleasant things about
their slowness.
    Does anyone have any experience with these devices?  We'll probably be
getting the SCSI-2 (Swordfish or Model 7201) controller, not the METC
(SCSI-1, Minnow or Model 2382) controller.  Does that make a difference? (I
hope so... :-)
    Btw, does anyone know where the code that drives the SCSI-1 controller
resides under Primos?  I ran the same save to the QIC-02 and to the Telex
tape drive and the former took something like six times the CPU that the
latter did, which seems a little unreasonable unless there is a bunch of
code in Primos somewhere which gets called with the SCSI controller and not
the Telex.  (That's CPU time, not elapsed time -- I EXPECTED that to be
slower :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Trumbull     <trumbull@sdcprm.pri.sas.com>
SAS Institute, Inc.
SAS Campus Drive
Cary, NC USA
  -- Software Credo: Machines are infinitely fast and have infinite memory