I'd have to agree then that Ditto has somewhat
legitimate reasons for going "proprietary" in their
tape formats. On the other hand, this doesn't help the
idea of QIC standards, nor will it help the hapless
systems person who finds themself with a suddenly
obsolete library of tapes which must be discarded as
they expire, and which can't be used for next
weekend's backup. Or even worse, they get new hardware
that's incompatible with the base OS access routines.
I have to be reminded that only a very few years ago,
the TR-3 tapes, the same size Ditto tapes, and even
QIC-3020 tapes, could all be used in TR-3 capacity
drives from different manufacturers. That's how I
wound up with a library of TR-3's, yet an Iomega
drive.
I intend to query Colorado/Travan to see if there's
any hope that reformatting an older tape, such as a
TR-3, on any of their larger new drives, will allow
write access to the tape. If I get any positive
solutions, I'll feed them back here. If anyone else
has such info, please feed it in!
Jim
--- Tim Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Jim Rankin wrote:
> >
> > --- Tim Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Well, that's going a bit far. The problem with
> the
> > > Max/TR-3 issue is
> > > one of head assembly. Some time, the laws of
> > > manufacturing and physics
> > > prohibit carrying forward old technology. In
> order
> > > to create a head
> > > assembly that can place 90+ tracks on a piece of
> > > tape that is .318"
> > > wide, the physical magnet pieces have to be so
> small
> > > that they could not
> > > possibly write a track wide enough to be
> recognized
> > > by a TR-3 capable
> > > head. Plus, the magnetic properties of the new,
> > > thinner media makes the
> > > electronic model much different between drive
> types.
> > >
> >
> > That sounds reasonable for some cases, but Ditto
> does
> > read/write their own smaller tapes (down to 3 GB)
> with
> > the Ditto Max. This makes me wonder what the
> obstacle
> > is for any of the manufacturers doing this with
> > similar 10 GB drives. I'd be happy to switch to a
> > Travan 10 GB, or even 8 or 5 GB drive if it would
> > read/write the TR-3 as well, as Ditto does with
> the 3
> > GB Ditto tapes. But the newer Colorado drives will
> > only read the TR-3.
>
> Again, it's a technology issue. They can't write
> TR-3 because the
> required track width is TOO LARGE for the heads in
> the Max (and other
> high capacity) drives. Also, remember that even
> though the drives can
> READ the older tapes, this doesn't mean that you
> could write a TR-3 with
> ftape drivers and then read it in the TR-4 with the
> standard ATAPI or
> SCSI drivers. The logical format of the tapes is
> quite different. This
> is permissible under DOS/WIN because their software
> is dedicated to its
> task, and not generic in nature like bru | tar |
> cpio | et al. Under
> Unix (and Linux) the app software depends upon a
> standardized driver
> layer to process read and write requests. Under
> DOS/WIN, the
> applications generally have dedicated drivers that
> can operate in
> whatever manner the vendor deems appropriate.
>
> > I'd even be willing to reformat the TR-3's in a
> newer
> > drive first, if that would work, but I can't find
> any
> > claim that it does work. Incidentally, I've found
> that
> > reformatting often reduces error rates over
> factory
> > formatting anyway, so I'd be totally unwilling to
> buy
> > a drive with no format capability.
>
> The Ditto Max formatted tapes are quite different
> from TR-1/2/3 and
> other QIC-80/120 class tapes. One other tidbit I've
> picked up in the
> difference between TR-3 and Max media -- the Oersted
> values of the media
> layer are dramatically different. In order to keep
> the tracks tight
> enough on the Max, the heads write a much weaker
> magnetic signal. In
> fact, a Max head probably wouldn't even make a
> magnetic dent on a
> non-Max tape.
>
> > Thanks for your considerable info on all this!
>
> You're quite welcome. Hopefully, it's also helping
> others in their tape
> drive selection decisions.
>
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
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>
> --
> Tim Jones
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Vice President
> http://www.estinc.com/
> Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc. (602)
> 470-1115
> "The BRU Guys"
>
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