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From: dem@uwslh.UUCP (David E. Miran)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.periphs,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: magtape , and what's hot
Message-ID: <242@uwslh.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-May-87 08:43:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwslh.242
Posted: Tue May  5 08:43:39 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 6-May-87 05:41:42 EDT
References: <878@wjvax.wjvax.UUCP>
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Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison, State Hygiene Lab
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Xref: mnetor comp.sys.misc:552 comp.periphs:353 comp.unix.wizards:2156

michael ryan  writes
> here at WJ we wish to upgrade our magtape from .5 inch 1600 bpi
> to a local maximum. Considerations include density,reliability,
> and price ( of course! ). 

At the Wisconsin State Hygiene Laboratory we are using an SI 9700
tape system on our VAX-11/750 with about 1.2 Gigabytes of disk space.
This is actually a Storage Technology model 1953 Tridensity tape
drive (800/1600/6250) that runs at 125 ips.  The controller is a single
board that is both massbus adaptor (or pretends it is) and tape
controller.  In our experience this unit is reliable and very fast.
It is very expensive (we paid about $30,000 in 1984) for it and it
is not state of the art (it has been out for at least 5 years).
On the other hand, it runs at full speed (125ips) even at 6250 bpi
while many of the modern inexpensive drives are 125ips at 1600 bpi
and only 50 to 75 ips at 6250 bpi.
We are very happy with it and I haven't yet seen anything that would
give better performance if you want to be able to dump a lot of stuff
to tape fast.  This tape drive has a reputation as a very rugged unit.
When we recently acquired a second computer we dual-port'ed the tape
drive so that we share this one fancy drive between two computers.

-- 
David E. Miran         ...!{seismo,harvard,topaz,ihnp4}!uwvax!uwslh!dem
Wisconsin State Hygiene Lab    or    dem%uwslh.uucp@spool.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin          (608) 262-0019
465 Henry Mall
Madison, WI  53706