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From: mckay@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Dwight D. Mckay)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: 8mm or 4mm?
Message-ID: <13753@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 19 Jun 91 14:44:18 GMT
Sender: news@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Organization: Department of Biological Science, Purdue University
Lines: 20

Our 8mm tape drive has once again died.  Twice in two years.

Since we are starting to handle a sizable amout of data created by the
X-ray instruments here, I'm considering adding a second drive.

Should I add another exabyte (8mm) or start switching over to DAT (4mm)?

As I understand it the *big* differences are:

- Ignoring compression, 8mm has greater capacity then 4mm.
- 4mm is faster on "seeking" files

Suggestions?  Comments from owners of 4mm or 8mm drives?

BTW: This drive would be attached a VMS machine and used remotely via
Multinet from UNIX machines.

--Dwight D. McKay, Purdue University, Department of Biological Sciences
--Office: LILY B-145, Phone: (317) 494-4481
--mckay@gimli.bio.purdue.edu