Re: DAT Loader failures: secret revealed!
Most guys I know with DAT loaders burn the heads up within a year (your mileage will vary). Thanks for your overview. When we used DAT, we had three drives. Each one went in at least once a year for warranty service. Once warranty expired, it was cheaper to simply replace the drive. Since switching to AIT over a year ago, no service has been necessary at all. Dan Knight, IS manager/webmaster [EMAIL PROTECTED] Baker Book House Company http://www.bakerbooks.com 6030 East Fulton 616-676-9185 x146 Ada, Michigan 49301 fax 616-676-9573 Macs for productivity, Unix for stability, Windows for solitaire -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ For urgent issues, please contact Dantz technical support directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 925.253.3050.
Re: Opinions of Onstream Echo drives
I've installed 7 of these: 5 SCSI and 2 USB. Overall I'd say they work well. All 7 clients continue to use them. Most the calls I get is about understanding Retrospect (but that's another discussion). The problems I've seen with the Onstream include: - The drive doesn't always see a new tape after a tape swap. The 1.08 firmware was supposed to resolve this, but it hasn't totally. The workaround is simple. Turn the drive off and on. That seems to clear it. - One USB drive was defective. It was replaced, and I got Onstream to throw in a free cleaning cartridge in retribution. - One tape was defective (out of about 20 I've used so far). It broke. It was replaced by Onstream. Unfortunately it was for the same client who had the bad USB drive. He wasn't real happy. But the system is know working for him (though he still hasn't paid me!!). - At first their Tech Support knew nothing about Macs. I think that's getting better. I won't give their Tech support high marks. It took them about an hour to acknowledge that the USB drive was bad. They didn't have equipment at hand to check out my problem. Bottom line is I continue to use them and recommend them. I don't see anything else at this price point which is competitive. My clients are unwilling to spend over $1000 for an VXA-1. And my success with Travan isn't much better. Phil Geller WorkingMacs voice: 650 493-8689 fax: 650 493-8587 on 11/8/00 6:39 PM, Joel Moore at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We've been backing up to Onstream's Echo drives (DI30: IDE, 15GB) with mixed results. I like these drives (price is nice, IDE interface) but lately I've been wondering about the quality. Two out of the three we've purchased so far were plagued by bad media errors (-206) in Retrospect. I tried different tapes and in fact the tapes that resulted in the errors worked fine on the third tape drive. Has anyone else had experience with these drives? What's your opinion? We have another one on order but I think that will be the last if this happens again. I was thrilled by the idea that I could have 4 or 5 of these working together for the price of 1 DAT drive so I'll be disappointed if it turns out they are junk. I know this isn't technically a Retrospect question so feel free to blast me but I figured this would be the best place to ask this question. Joel Moore DCI Systems, Inc. -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ For urgent issues, please contact Dantz technical support directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 925.253.3050. -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ For urgent issues, please contact Dantz technical support directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 925.253.3050.
Re: DAT Loader failures: secret revealed!
Daniel Knight wrote:
Most guys I know with DAT loaders burn the heads up within a
year (your mileage will vary).
Thanks for your overview. When we used DAT, we had three drives. Each one
went in at least once a year for warranty service. Once warranty expired,
it was cheaper to simply replace the drive.
Since switching to AIT over a year ago, no service has been necessary at
all.
Dan Knight, IS manager/webmaster [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Baker Book House Company http://www.bakerbooks.com
6030 East Fulton 616-676-9185 x146
Ada, Michigan 49301 fax 616-676-9573
Macs for productivity, Unix for stability, Windows for solitaire
I'll buy that tag line! ;-)
Actually, I just wanted to toss in my historical 2-cents on DAT drives
(it's been a while).
The overview on DAT, DLT and AIT gave us just that -- an overview of the
type of mechanism. That's useful information to have, but that's like
giving us a comparison of internal combustion cylinder engines versus
turbine engines. If someone throws in their personal experience without
specifying that their car was a Yugo rather than a Toyota, it confuses
the comparison.
During the time I was responsible for daily backups of the Specular
network, I went through a number of DAT drives. I found that the end
manufacturer was critical. This applies to all kinds of drives. The
budget manufacturers may tout that they have the same mechanism, but
they don't talk a lot about their other components. How do they achieve
their budget prices? Well, they use cheaper fans, power supplies, scsi
componentry, etc. The cheap drives were consisently failing after 6 to 9
months. For example, the fan would fail and other components would
overheat and fail. Or the fan was "quiet" ("good PR"), but wasn't
drawing enough air and components ran hotter than they should and failed
sooner than they should.
When I insisted on getting Micronet drives (this was 1995 to 1997), I
had no more problems. Not only did they behave consistently and
flawlessly for approaching two years (that's when Specular was bought
out), but they would read tapes that the other drives failed to read.
The cost of the drives were about double the cheap ones, but they were
rock solid and had top quality compenents throughout.
So, while AIT sounds clearly better than either DAT or DLT, I would bet
that there are significant differences among AIT drives from different
manufacturers even if they have the same core mechanism.
I recently got a new 9.1G IBM drive for my 7100 at home. Since I was
putting it in as an internal drive, that's about all I needed to know.
If I had been getting an external drive, then I would have to worry
about the end manufacturer and all the other components including power,
fan, casing, etc. I didn't feel like worrying, so I tossed the 700MB
internal and just replaced it with the IBM drive.
I suppose I've given more than just 2-cents worth. But then, if you
weren't interested, you wouldn't be arriving here at the last sentance. ;-)
---
Chris Hoogendyk
--
O__ Network Specialist Unix Systems Administrator
c/ /'_ --- Library Information Systems Technology Services
(*) \(*) -- W.E.B. Du Bois Library
~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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RE: Can't Find cd-r drive?
While I'm assuming you've already checked out the Dantz website I'll add this link anyway: http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=cdr_infosid=8qdZzjELf0X7nN0Y Joel Moore -Original Message- From: david campano [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 2:25 AM To: retro-talk Subject: Can't Find cd-r drive? Hello, I just installed Retrospect and cannot get it to find my cd-r drive for backup? The error says 'no disk drive' found? Thank you if you can help me out on this one! Dave Campano [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ For urgent issues, please contact Dantz technical support directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 925.253.3050. -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ For urgent issues, please contact Dantz technical support directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 925.253.3050.
