Also Sprach Tom Strickland:
> In my previous post I mentioned that we're looking to get an HP
> Surestore. The suppliers said that nothing less a rather expensive
> Adaptec card would do. If we need to buy an expensive Ultra-Wide card,
> we will. I would have thought that it was overkill for the speed that
> such a drive can manage? Am I missing something? Are the lower priced
> cards of such inferior quality that it would be a mistake to buy them?
> BTW - no SCSI hard drives in use at the moment - cannot afford them.
>
> thanks,
>
> Tom
>
You should get the very biggest tape drive you can afford and even that
won't be enough. If backward compatibility with DDS2 isn't an issue
Ecrix VXATape is priced about the same as DDS4 and has a 33GB native
capacity. For a few hundred dollars more there is Benchmark DLT (40GB), Sony
AIT (35GB) and Tandberg SLR (20-50GB), all worthy technologies.
As for SCSI controllers: I have used DDS3 (HP 1537A) with Adaptecs
from an old 1542A (the one with all the jumpers) to a 2940, an Advansys,
an NCR, an Initio, and a Tekram DC-315. All worked OK and are 50 pin SCSI-2.
The Adaptec 1542A can be had free from a junk heap and the Tekram is about
$25.
I have used DDS4 drives (a Sony SDT10K and an HP SureStore) with NCR
and Adaptec, and on some of the above mentioned with a 68 to 50 pin
cable with proper termination of the 18 pins.
I would say that the DDS drives are not terribly fussy with respect
to SCSI controllers (note in passing: nor are the Ecrix VXATape drives
since I tried them in the same configurations). The DDS3 only has a
transfer rates of 1-2MBps on a good day and a DDS4 only 2-3MBps.
So I'd say go ahead and try a cheapie controller. If it works buy
another one - controllers do fail. If not, return it and get a
cheap Adaptec PCI controller, since Adaptec is the standard in
compatibility.
--
C. Chan < [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key.
