Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Henry Bond via cctalk]

I have seen LTO around a lot, with fancy pants usb. For forward compatibility 
it is probably the best bet it would seem. 

Though I might get open tape for just because it looks cool, though I might get 
one for media, rather than raw data storage. 

-H 

On 24 July 2017 17:03:29 BST, Al Kossow via cctalk  
wrote:
>
>
>On 7/24/17 8:46 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
>
>> The problem with Exabyte drives is they seemed to have a short shelf
>life.
>
>Most of the rubber parts have failed in the dozens of Exabytes I have.
>
>LTO is the direction the world has been going for a while. They have
>about three
>generations of backwards compatibility, so that sets your maximum time
>for media
>migration.
>
>There is going to be a problem though if you really need to stick with
>SCSI, since
>the transfer rates can't be handled off of a modern LTO drive.

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 7/24/17 8:46 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:

> The problem with Exabyte drives is they seemed to have a short shelf life.

Most of the rubber parts have failed in the dozens of Exabytes I have.

LTO is the direction the world has been going for a while. They have about three
generations of backwards compatibility, so that sets your maximum time for media
migration.

There is going to be a problem though if you really need to stick with SCSI, 
since
the transfer rates can't be handled off of a modern LTO drive.

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 07/23/2017 10:35 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote:

On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

There have been many tape formats that have gone in and out of fashion.
In the late 80s and early 90s, 8mm videotape-type Exabyte carts were
very popular--when have you last seen one?


30 seconds ago. I guess I should clean the Exabyte carts off my dining room
table.

The problem with Exabyte drives is they seemed to have a 
short shelf life.  If powered on 24/7, they would fail about 
once a year, and require a several hundred $ overhaul at a 
3rd party rebuild facility.  There was quite an industry of 
people rebuilding these drives, possibly using consumer 
video parts.  The electronics in the drive also would fail 
fairly often.


If left powered off, it seemed like the failure rate was not 
much better.


We used them as data transfer drives, so ran the HECK out of 
them at work (tape loaded and moving something like 100 
hours a week.)


Jon

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Camiel Vanderhoeven via cctalk]

What kind of data volume are we talking about, and what kind of budget? I
personally use LTO-5 for my backups (1.5 TB raw capacity), and have no
difficulty finding tapes.


On 7/24/17, 2:51 AM, "cctalk on behalf of Henry Bond via cctalk"
 wrote:

>Hi Gang, 
>
>I have need to make backups, and if you are going to do something, do it
>the proper way. Feel like I'm preaching to the choir here mind.
>
>My issue is finding tape to fit any drive I might buy or choosing an
>appropriate tape library device which has tape available to purchase with
>relative ease. 
>
>Any pointers, suggestions or anecdotes as always is most appreciated.
>
>
>-H

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Henry Bond via cctalk]

If you think there's a way I can do backups onto open reel tape and have it 
last 30 years +, 

I've been looking for an excuse to get one of those. 

-H

On 24 July 2017 06:20:35 BST, Chuck Guzis via cctalk  
wrote:
>On 07/23/2017 09:05 PM, devin davison via cctalk wrote:
>
>> 30 seconds ago. I guess I should clean the Exabyte carts off my
>dining room
>> table.
>
>Heck, I've still got lots of DDS1 and 2 carts, DC1000 mini carts, and a
>whole box of 8mm Exabytes.  Various QIC carts, Travan, etc.
>
>Did someone say Syqest? Hey, I've still got a new Sparq drive here, as
>well as Jaz, Bernoulli, etc.
>
>There's also various flavors of MO disks as well as good old CD and
>DVD.
>
>Of course, I'm ignoring the crates of 1/2" open-reel tape sitting
>around
>here, some of which are in excess of 50 years old and still quite
>readable.
>
>--Chuck

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Henry Bond via cctalk]

Sony AIT and DDS have been my most popular eBay finds so far, I am blessed with 
SCSI equipment, even if it is a SS10. 

My data needs aren't huge, I did see those 1TB tapes and wondered how long it 
would take my sparcstation to push a terabyte, might be unfair. 

Seems the resilience of tape is hard pressed to be beaten. 

-H

On 24 July 2017 04:56:35 BST, TeoZ via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>The major 8mm tape drives I know about are SONY AIT
>
>-Original Message- 
>From: Glen Slick via cctalk 
>Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2017 11:35 PM 
>To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
>Subject: Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available 
>
>On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
>cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>> There have been many tape formats that have gone in and out of
>fashion.
>> In the late 80s and early 90s, 8mm videotape-type Exabyte carts were
>> very popular--when have you last seen one?
>>
>
>30 seconds ago. I guess I should clean the Exabyte carts off my dining
>room
>table.
>
>---
>This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
>https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 07/23/2017 09:05 PM, devin davison via cctalk wrote:

> 30 seconds ago. I guess I should clean the Exabyte carts off my dining room
> table.

Heck, I've still got lots of DDS1 and 2 carts, DC1000 mini carts, and a
whole box of 8mm Exabytes.  Various QIC carts, Travan, etc.

Did someone say Syqest? Hey, I've still got a new Sparq drive here, as
well as Jaz, Bernoulli, etc.

There's also various flavors of MO disks as well as good old CD and DVD.

Of course, I'm ignoring the crates of 1/2" open-reel tape sitting around
here, some of which are in excess of 50 years old and still quite readable.

--Chuck

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[devin davison via cctalk]

my sgi onyx just came with a 8 mm drive. i picked up some tapes cheap, they
are pretty limited in capacity. i have had read and write issues even after
using a cleaning tape and a new box of tapes. my ibm as 400 used them too
similar issues. kept complaining the drive was dirty even after running a
cleaning tape. i would not reccomend 8 mm. guess it is time to invest in
some lto drives and tapes.

On Jul 23, 2017 11:35 PM, "Glen Slick via cctalk" 
wrote:

On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> There have been many tape formats that have gone in and out of fashion.
> In the late 80s and early 90s, 8mm videotape-type Exabyte carts were
> very popular--when have you last seen one?
>

30 seconds ago. I guess I should clean the Exabyte carts off my dining room
table.

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[TeoZ via cctalk]

LTO is what I use for large archives. Tapes and drives are plentiful and 
cheap. LTO-1 is 100/200GB, LTO-2 is 200/400GB (native compressed). DLT is 
older and lower capacity but cheap, Super DLT is newer and higher capacity 
and expensive.


I also play around with DDS 1-4, AIT 1 and 2, dabble with Tandberg SLR tapes 
and even some QIC/Travan drives for real old gear. Linux/Unix probably has 
drivers for everything but other OS and proprietary backup software would 
not.


IF you just want to move data and have SCSI you can also play around with 
Jazz, Syquest, MO drives.


-Original Message- 
From: devin davison via cctalk

Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2017 10:33 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ; Henry Bond
Subject: Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

I have quite a bit of sgi gear and have been moving quite a bit of data
from a linux machine to my sgi gear via tape recently. dat dds4 and dat 72
drives work good and the tapes are easy to come by. i have many dell
branded dat drives that work without any special configuration. for larger
capacity tapes i use a dell dlt drive. you have to make some tweaks to a
file to make the drive use its full capacity but it works well too.

i trust dlt tapes over dat tapes. i do not make multiple backups to the
same tape. the tapes degrade with use. i make a backup. store the tape, and
only use that tape for future restore operations. so i would reccomend dlt
drives if you can get a compatible drive and a box of new tapes at a good
price.


On Jul 23, 2017 8:51 PM, "Henry Bond via cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
wrote:

Hi Gang,

I have need to make backups, and if you are going to do something, do it
the proper way. Feel like I'm preaching to the choir here mind.

My issue is finding tape to fit any drive I might buy or choosing an
appropriate tape library device which has tape available to purchase with
relative ease.

Any pointers, suggestions or anecdotes as always is most appreciated.


-H 



---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[TeoZ via cctalk]

The major 8mm tape drives I know about are SONY AIT

-Original Message- 
From: Glen Slick via cctalk 
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2017 11:35 PM 
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
Subject: Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available 


On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:


There have been many tape formats that have gone in and out of fashion.
In the late 80s and early 90s, 8mm videotape-type Exabyte carts were
very popular--when have you last seen one?



30 seconds ago. I guess I should clean the Exabyte carts off my dining room
table.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Glen Slick via cctalk]

On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> There have been many tape formats that have gone in and out of fashion.
> In the late 80s and early 90s, 8mm videotape-type Exabyte carts were
> very popular--when have you last seen one?
>

30 seconds ago. I guess I should clean the Exabyte carts off my dining room
table.

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 07/23/2017 05:51 PM, Henry Bond via cctalk wrote:

> I have need to make backups, and if you are going to do something, do it the 
> proper way. Feel like I'm preaching to the choir here mind. 
> 
> My issue is finding tape to fit any drive I might buy or choosing an 
> appropriate tape library device which has tape available to purchase with 
> relative ease. 
> 
> Any pointers, suggestions or anecdotes as always is most appreciated. 

The good news is that there has been an ANSI standard for SCSI tape
devices for a long time.

There have been many tape formats that have gone in and out of fashion.
In the late 80s and early 90s, 8mm videotape-type Exabyte carts were
very popular--when have you last seen one?

DDS hasn't been "DAT" for a very long time--and pretty much, after
DDS-4, has been the province of HP.  Given that HP has canceled furture
development after DAT 320, I'd consider it to be an obsolescent medium.

DLT has been around since the TK50, with DLT-S4A being the latest (2007)
version.  It's quite rugged and used by a bunch of people.

LTO is by far the most popular tape medium and future improvements are
scheduled.  LTO has one interesting feature (since LTO-3):  a WORM
cartridge as an option--that is, it's write once, read many times.

Regardless, plan to regenerate your backup data every 10-15 years if you
want to avoid running a dinosaur farm.

FWIW,
--Chuck

Re: Scsi tape and compatible tapes that are available

[devin davison via cctalk]

I have quite a bit of sgi gear and have been moving quite a bit of data
from a linux machine to my sgi gear via tape recently. dat dds4 and dat 72
drives work good and the tapes are easy to come by. i have many dell
branded dat drives that work without any special configuration. for larger
capacity tapes i use a dell dlt drive. you have to make some tweaks to a
file to make the drive use its full capacity but it works well too.

i trust dlt tapes over dat tapes. i do not make multiple backups to the
same tape. the tapes degrade with use. i make a backup. store the tape, and
only use that tape for future restore operations. so i would reccomend dlt
drives if you can get a compatible drive and a box of new tapes at a good
price.


On Jul 23, 2017 8:51 PM, "Henry Bond via cctalk" 
wrote:

Hi Gang,

I have need to make backups, and if you are going to do something, do it
the proper way. Feel like I'm preaching to the choir here mind.

My issue is finding tape to fit any drive I might buy or choosing an
appropriate tape library device which has tape available to purchase with
relative ease.

Any pointers, suggestions or anecdotes as always is most appreciated.


-H