Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!yale!babss!wadswort
From: wadswort@babss.UUCP (John H. Wadsworth)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: High Capacity Tapes: Exabyte or DAT?
Message-ID: <1348@b1.babss.UUCP>
Date: 22 May 91 13:15:29 GMT
References: <29543@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Organization: Bell Atlantic Business Systems Service Branford, Ct.
Lines: 25

In article <29543@hydra.gatech.EDU> ken@dali.cc.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes:
>-----
> ....deleted text about ..to buy more exabytes, that is the question....
>Seems that one of our kernel jocks has a pal at <unamed mini-super-
>computer> company in the quality assurance department that claims that
>Exabytes just aren't the way to go...that, indeed, the DAT is the One
>True Backup Device (tm), and that the Archive Python is the One True
>Incarnation of said Device.
>
I have no experience with DAT and could only repeat net.rumors so I
can't tell you if they are better or worse. I do have experience with
exabytes. Multiflow Computer was a beta test site. The first revs of
exabytes were pretty bad. Some days they worked, some days they didn't.
Exabyte has made some changes in their firmware and testing procedures.
They have improved about a zillion percent since I started working with 
them. 

THIS IS THE PART YOU NEED TO KNOW......
There should be a revision sticker on the drive. Look for the line that
lists the mx board. The prom should be 4$24 or above (like 4$25 4$25a ). 
4$24 made a big improvement in the "works one day but not the next" and
4$25 seems to extend the mtbf but I don't know why.

Before the 4$24 firmware i used to swear some drives were haunted.
That's why I called them hexabytes :-)