[ILUG] Cheap large capacity tape drives

[Wesley Darlington]

Hi,

On Mon, Jun 26, 2000 at 02:23:52PM +0100, Niall O Broin wrote:
> Where did I call DLT cheap ?

Did I say you did? ;-)

Reading over your post, you didn't say this; However...

You said:
> there's no real difference in cost
> between a cheap tape drive e.g. Travan and an expensive tape drive e.g. DLT,
> because the tape cartridges for a cheap tape drive are relatively very
> expensive, so the cost of tape drive + enough cartridges is about the same
> for either option).

...in which you seem to be saying that the cartridges for a cheap drive
are relatively expensive compared to the cartridges for an expensive
drive. (DLT, I assumed). Which would imply that the cartridges for an
expensive drive (ie. DLT cartridges) are relatively cheap compared to
the cartridges for a cheap drive. Which is just a stone's throw away
from calling DLT cheap. A bit tenuous, perhaps...

Anyway, *are* DLT cartridges cheaper per megabyte than cartridges for
(say) travans...?  (clickety click)  Wow! They are. Best part of twenty
quid for a 4GB/8GB travan cartridge. That'd be two hundred quid for
40GB/80GB, which compares badly to the sixty-odd quid a 35/70GB or
a 40/80GB compatible DLT tape costs. (IV? V?)

> Ahh - they're a fiddle. Although they use a SCSI connection, they're not
> true SCSI tape drives i.e. they don't support the SCSI tape streamer command
> set. Effectively they're generic SCSI devices which need special software to
> drive them, so you can't tar or cpio to them. Last I checked they were

Aiee! That's awful. :-(

> Ah, but the problem is that at point B is situated an operator, who will
> have very precise instructions as to how to put the tape cartridge into the
> tape drive, and unloading of data will be done remotely. Even expensive tape
> cartridges are cheaper than laptops.

Sorry, I was stuck in the "I've lots of data I want to take home" mentality.

All the best,
Wesley.