Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!mcdchg!ddsw1!karl
From: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: QIC tape drive
Summary: Warning for tape drive users, specifically ARCHIVE
Message-ID: <2011@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Date: 26 Oct 88 22:11:25 GMT
References: <1073@statware.UUCP> <2296@turnkey.TCC.COM>
Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger)
Distribution: na
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL
Lines: 36

In article <2296@turnkey.TCC.COM> sandy@turnkey.TCC.COM (Sanford 'Sandy' Zelkovitz) writes:
>In article <1073@statware.UUCP>, scf@statware.UUCP (Steve Fullerton) writes:
>> Is anyone using a QIC tape drive on a 20Mhz XENIX 386 system
>> (QIC24 format)? We are looking for a tape drive that uses a format
>> that can be read on Sun, AT&T, and other systems.  
>
>I use the Archive tape backup system (long card cntroller only) on my systems.

There is only one thing to watch on those archive drives....

A couple of months ago we had an "interesting" failure on our tape drive
(It's an archive with the SC400 long-card).  The drive would write (or
appear to) perfectly, but it wrote _junk_.  100%, absolute garbage.  We only
caught this one by (bad) luck, as our disk decided that it would crash a day
after the tape quit working right.  Fortunately the only loss was one days'
information; nasty but not a major disaster.

Now, we were under the impression that these drives had two gaps in the
head, and that they at least checked for sanity in the data that was
written.  It would appear that was a bad assumption, or that the particular
failure mode the archive board experienced was undetectable by this
operation.

We've also sold Wangtek gear, and have been completely happy with it (no
returns from customers, no failures).  Since we've never had a Wangtek
product fail I've got no idea if they are subject to the same failure mode
as the Archive units.

Both work fine with SCO Xenix V/386 V2.2.x

The moral?  ALWAYS check your tapes for readability, END TO END.

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl)
Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.    	"Quality solutions at a fair price"