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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!haven!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: High capacity backup for LANs
Keywords: DAT, LANs, Backup, Novell
Message-ID: <14029@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 17 Oct 88 08:34:31 GMT
References: <413@cont1.Dayton.NCR.COM> <324@ivucsb.UUCP> <547@fabscal.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 23

In article <547@fabscal.UUCP> dorn@fabscal.UUCP (Alan Dorn Hetzel) writes:
>For the ultimate in high performance backup, check out a little box from
>Honeywell Instrument Systems which uses VHS tape to backup on... specs:
>
>Capacity: 5.6 Gigabytes per tape (approximate)
>Throughput: 2 or 4 Megabytes per second (1 or 2 channel model)
>            (This creams your average 9-track)
>Cost: If you have to ask....

Most VHS backup tape systems apparently do not incorporate motor control.
What this means is that if you cannot read the tape at least as fast as
you wrote it, you will miss some data and not be able to recover it
(unless it appears again later in the tape).  The program cannot stop
the tape and back it up to re-read the missed data.  If this is true,
I would not use it.

I have been told that all the 8mm video tape backup systems use the
Sony transport.  The one we are experimenting with now certainly does
have motor control.  Alas, it is (like all the others) limited to 248
kB/s.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris