On Sat, 28 Apr 2001, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote:
>
> I don't trust DDS very much anymore. It may be coincidence; but I've
> seen/heard of more reliability out of 8mm tape drives (Exabyte, AIT, VXA)
> than the 4mm tape drives (DDS-{2,3,4}).
Drives aside, in my opinion, 4mm tape is trouble, period. OK, I'll
qualify that -- any 4mm tape with large particle metal oxide tapes is
trouble. But, since that includes any data tape ever made, my first
statement works.
The trouble is in the formulation itself. Crudely, there's not enough
glue to keep the oxide particles in the tape, so you get very high
dropouts. I suspect that the systems that work have a much lower capacity
per linear foot than other ones, because they rely on greater on-tape data
redundancy. I'm not 100% sure why the homogeneity of the oxide isn't the
same for 4mm or 8mm, but it definitely makes a difference.
There will be anecdotal evidence both ways, but the tape industry had a
lot harder time to get 4mm to work for digital. DAT is the pits for
reliability, and to be avoided for anything seriously archival.
Ah well, another county heard from...
--
"To misattribute a quote is unforgivable." --Anonymous