[ILUG] Cheap tape drives

[Ray Kelly]

On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, Niall O Broin wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 17, 2002 at 07:36:25PM +0000, Ray Kelly wrote:
> 
> <EMPATHY>I feel your pain</EMPATHY>. A Mammorth is the biggest backup device
> I have in the house. I came across a nearly new, unused, drive for very
> little, used it maybe twice testing and started to look into the cost of
> tapes, which is when I first started to debate IDE disks vs. tapes with
> Wesley. That was a few months ago, and even then the Mammoth types were only
> slightly less per GB than disks - I imagine the balance has swung in the
> favour of disks by now. Anyway, said drive has since developed a dirty mind
> - it alwats wants to be cleaned, and having completed a cleaning cycle, it
> still wants to be cleaned. So I gave up on the Mammoth, and the price of
> the tapes ceased to be an issue :-(


They're just not reliable devices! mine (a 225M M2) used to reject 
& destroy about one tape in 20, ok that drive gave up the ghost about 3 
weeks ago & touch wood it's replacment (albeit minus the swishy LCD) will 
continue "working"  until I figure out [0] a better replacment.
On the cleaning issue I've found that power cycling it seems to make that 
problem go away, though that's kinda not the optimal solution I'll admit
:) it chucks the notion of reliable backups out the window though 
(shudder)

on the cost issue I can get the tapes of 60/120GB stated capacity but in 
reality getting about 90-100GB per tape for about 160 Euro (inc VAT) 
whereas the closest I can see for an IDE HDD 
on http://www.marx-computers.com is a 60 GB 5k4rpm for 169.5 or an 80GB 
5k4 rpm drive for 225 (all prices inc vat)
I'll admit that the only suppliers I've been able to src for Mammoth Media 
in Ireland are (in my opinion) best described as "disguistingly expensive 
cowboys" but the cost per GB ain't in IDE's favour _just_ yet !

	Ray ...

[0] convince the ppl with the cheque books of my cunning plan