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From: caserta@athena.mit.edu (Francesco Caserta)
Subject: Re: Which DAT: Archive or Wangtek ?
Message-ID: <1991Jun4.181457.24292@athena.mit.edu>
Keywords: DAT
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Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Date: Tue, 4 Jun 91 18:14:57 GMT
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I'm also in the market for a DAT drive for my IPC. Unfortunately, it's a new technology and very little information is available. As far as I know, there exist two formats: DDS and Data/DAT. The former does not allow random writing, while the latter does; this allows to mount a filesystem on a DAT tape. It's in this latter format that I'm interested in for near-line access. (I know the speed is slow.)

Gigatrend seems to be one of the companies more involved in this technology, but I don't know how to contact them. January's issue of SunExpert contains an article titled "Backup Strategies" which ends with a six-page survey of all (?) products available (Exabyte and DAT) which I was thinking to start from.

So, I'm very interested in hearing from people that are using DAT drives not just as backup alternative, but as an ordinary storage-access medium, although slow.

Thanks,

Francesco Caserta