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#1
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Selecting a DAT drive
My DDS-3 tape drive (a Sony SDT-9000) is malfunctioning, and I think
it's time for me to upgrade to DDS-4 or DDS-5. If you've had experience with this technology, please comment: which brand(s) would be most reliable? After a couple of decades of extremely good experience with DAT technology, my relationship with DDS-3 has been unhappy. My original HP drive failed spontaneously after about three years of use, and its replacement died after a couple of months. I then swore off HP and bought the Sony, which lasted a couple of years before it started eating tapes. Thus, my concern for choosing something I can count on. |
#2
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Selecting a DAT drive
Previously Jonathan Sachs wrote:
My DDS-3 tape drive (a Sony SDT-9000) is malfunctioning, and I think it's time for me to upgrade to DDS-4 or DDS-5. If you've had experience with this technology, please comment: which brand(s) would be most reliable? After a couple of decades of extremely good experience with DAT technology, my relationship with DDS-3 has been unhappy. My original HP drive failed spontaneously after about three years of use, and its replacement died after a couple of months. I then swore off HP and bought the Sony, which lasted a couple of years before it started eating tapes. Thus, my concern for choosing something I can count on. Bets move away from DAT then. The revolving heads will allways cause high wear and tear to the tapes and the themselves. What media capacity are you looking for? How much capacity altogether? Durability of indivicual media? Arno |
#3
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Selecting a DAT drive
On 20 Aug 2006 09:31:03 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote:
Best move away from DAT then. The revolving heads will allways cause high wear and tear to the tapes and the themselves. That was not my experience using DDS-2, DDS-1, and pre-DDS devices. Are the more advanced versions of DDS less reliable? That seems counterintuitive. If I do abandon DAT, it's not clear to me what other options I have. Before I bought the Sony drive I tried DLT technology, which was supposed to be more reliable. I discovered the opposite. Maybe it is reliable under data center conditions, but in a home with cats it produced unrestorable backups several times a year. Tape drives that use more advanced technologies appear to be very expensive, as do the tapes. The price of admission would be $2k or more, and I don't see how I can justify that for individual use. What media capacity are you looking for? My needs are somewhat elastic. At the moment I have no more than 13 GB on any one drive, but any new client or personal project could change that. My largest partition is 30 GB, but that is determined by the estimated capacity of my backup media, rather than the other way around. I do some audio restoration, which involves many 600 or 700 MB WAV files , and I feel constrained by the number of projects I can store on a DDS-3 tape. I think the best answer is that the more capacity the media has the better an investment the drive will be -- provided it is reliable. How much capacity altogether? I don't understand the question. The whole point of backing up on tape instead of a big disk is that total capacity can be increased incrementally, without limit. If it helps, I currently own about 3 dozen DDS-3 tapes, 18 of which are in use. Durability of indivicual media? I typically write each backup tape between one and ten times, then retain it for a year, during which I read it two or three times at most. Then I reuse it. I expect these tapes to become obsolete before they wear out, but I could live with limited media life if the media were not too expensive. For archival purposes I typically write once, read at most a few times a year, and retain indefinitely. |
#4
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Selecting a DAT drive
Jonathan Sachs wrote
Arno Wagner wrote Best move away from DAT then. The revolving heads will allways cause high wear and tear to the tapes and the themselves. That was not my experience using DDS-2, DDS-1, and pre-DDS devices. Are the more advanced versions of DDS less reliable? That seems counterintuitive. If I do abandon DAT, it's not clear to me what other options I have. All tape formats are WAY past their useby date now for the backup of personal desktop systems. Before I bought the Sony drive I tried DLT technology, which was supposed to be more reliable. I discovered the opposite. Maybe it is reliable under data center conditions, but in a home with cats it produced unrestorable backups several times a year. Tape drives that use more advanced technologies appear to be very expensive, as do the tapes. The price of admission would be $2k or more, and I don't see how I can justify that for individual use. Yep, you should be using hard drives, vastly cheaper. What media capacity are you looking for? My needs are somewhat elastic. At the moment I have no more than 13 GB on any one drive, but any new client or personal project could change that. My largest partition is 30 GB, but that is determined by the estimated capacity of my backup media, rather than the other way around. I do some audio restoration, which involves many 600 or 700 MB WAV files , and I feel constrained by the number of projects I can store on a DDS-3 tape. I think the best answer is that the more capacity the media has the better an investment the drive will be -- provided it is reliable. Yep, the only way to go is hard drives. A couple of 120G+ eSATA hard drives is the only way to go. How much capacity altogether? I don't understand the question. He means the total capacity of all the tapes involved in your media sets. The whole point of backing up on tape instead of a big disk is that total capacity can be increased incrementally, without limit. Thats completely academic in your case, even a pair of 300G drives gives you plenty of future and you can add another pair if you ever run out of capacity, for a total cost of much less than DDSanything. If it helps, I currently own about 3 dozen DDS-3 tapes, 18 of which are in use. Yeah, that's what he meant. Durability of indivicual media? I typically write each backup tape between one and ten times, then retain it for a year, during which I read it two or three times at most. Then I reuse it. I expect these tapes to become obsolete before they wear out, but I could live with limited media life if the media were not too expensive. No need for that farting around with non tapes. For archival purposes I typically write once, read at most a few times a year, and retain indefinitely. |
#5
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Selecting a DAT drive
I'm not going to respond to Rod's post, except to point out that he's
answering a question I didn't ask. I have plenty of reasons for using tape which I'm not going to go into here (I have done so in the past, if anyone cares to rummage through archives). I requested information about the reliability of various brands of two specific types of devices. To make this discussion useful, please, let's limit the discussion to those topics. |
#6
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Selecting a DAT drive
Jonathan Sachs wrote
I'm not going to respond to Rod's post, except to point out that he's answering a question I didn't ask. The question you asked is the wrong question. I have plenty of reasons for using tape No you dont. which I'm not going to go into here (I have done so in the past, if anyone cares to rummage through archives). They were duds then, and remain duds now. I requested information about the reliability of various brands of two specific types of devices. To make this discussion useful, please, let's limit the discussion to those topics. Taint gunna happen, because everyone with a clue has noticed that tapes are WAY past their useby date for personal desktop systems now. THATS why you cant buy what you want, the entire market has noticed. |
#7
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Selecting a DAT drive
My experience with DLT drives, all surplus, has been much better than
my experience with DAT drives, some of the new. I am currently using two ADIC VLS DLT 7000 changers (7 slots, 1 DLT 70000 35/70GB drive) which cost $150 each on eBay, plus a standalone Compaq DLT 7000. I haven't used these for long, having just switched over from an ADIC VLS DLT 4000 changer and two stand-alone DLT 4000 drives which have been 100%. My expereince with ADIC VLS changers (several DLT 2000XT, several DLT 4000, and now the two DLT 7000's) is that if they work on arrival, they seem to work nearly forever. I'm also using a 300GB Seagate IDE drive to store dumps, but I also need to archive. (We have two cats.) Mike Squires UNIX(tm) at home since 1986 |
#8
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Selecting a DAT drive
Previously Jonathan Sachs wrote:
On 20 Aug 2006 09:31:03 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote: Best move away from DAT then. The revolving heads will allways cause high wear and tear to the tapes and the themselves. That was not my experience using DDS-2, DDS-1, and pre-DDS devices. Are the more advanced versions of DDS less reliable? That seems counterintuitive. I have seen several of these wear out in about a year, with daily backups. If I do abandon DAT, it's not clear to me what other options I have. Before I bought the Sony drive I tried DLT technology, which was supposed to be more reliable. I discovered the opposite. Maybe it is reliable under data center conditions, but in a home with cats it produced unrestorable backups several times a year. Hmm. Tape drives that use more advanced technologies appear to be very expensive, as do the tapes. The price of admission would be $2k or more, and I don't see how I can justify that for individual use. What media capacity are you looking for? My needs are somewhat elastic. At the moment I have no more than 13 GB on any one drive, but any new client or personal project could change that. My largest partition is 30 GB, but that is determined by the estimated capacity of my backup media, rather than the other way around. I do some audio restoration, which involves many 600 or 700 MB WAV files , and I feel constrained by the number of projects I can store on a DDS-3 tape. I think the best answer is that the more capacity the media has the better an investment the drive will be -- provided it is reliable. MOD is out then. That is what I use. How much capacity altogether? I don't understand the question. The whole point of backing up on tape instead of a big disk is that total capacity can be increased incrementally, without limit. If it helps, I currently own about 3 dozen DDS-3 tapes, 18 of which are in use. It is an economic question. If you need lots of space you can invest more in the drive if the media are cheaper as a consequence. Durability of indivicual media? I typically write each backup tape between one and ten times, then retain it for a year, during which I read it two or three times at most. Then I reuse it. I expect these tapes to become obsolete before they wear out, but I could live with limited media life if the media were not too expensive. For archival purposes I typically write once, read at most a few times a year, and retain indefinitely. I think this is a case for professional tape. Maybe LTO? AIT is heli-scan as well, with the associated complex and problematic mechanics... Arno |
#9
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Selecting a DAT drive
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#10
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Selecting a DAT drive
On 21 Aug 2006 01:13:31 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote:
I think this is a case for professional tape. Maybe LTO? AIT is heli-scan as well, with the associated complex and problematic mechanics... That's an interesting possibility. I assumed LTO was too far out of my price range to warrant attention, but I look and found that LTO-1 drives are about as expensive as DDS-5 drives, and the tapes are available for less than $10 each. I've got a business trip coming up, and I don't have time to research a new technology now. I think I'm going to buy a removable disk drive so that I'll have SOME backup, then research this when I have more time. Any other pointers or hints you can give me about LTO technology and brands will be appreciated! |
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