OT: SLR 5 Tape drive vs DAT

[Bill Vermillion]

Shakespeare wrote plays and sonnets that will last an eternity, 
but on Sat, Feb 05 12:50 , GCC Consulting wrote:" 

>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com 
> > [mailto:filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com] On Behalf 
> > Of Kenneth Brody
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 10:52 AM
> > To: Scott Walker
> > Cc: Filepro_List
> > Subject: Re: OT: SLR 5 Tape drive vs DAT

> > Quoting Scott Walker <scottw1 at alltel.net>:
> > 
> > > One of my customers has an old QIC tape drive that has finally died.
> > >
> > > I told him to get a quote on a DAT drive to replace it.
> > [...]

> > Nowadays, is there any inherent advantage of using tapes when 
> > DVD writers and media are getting so inexpensive?

> Backward compatibility may also be a concern. With DVD
> standards changing rapidly it is possible that in a few years
> old archived media may not be able to be read by new drives.

> Granted, this has happened with tape technology. However, most
> manufacturers of tape drive have kept them backward compatible,
> as long as the media type hasn't changed, as far as reading the
> older tape formats.

Not completely backward compatible.   Tandberg is about the only
QIC manufacturer left, and when I last read the specs some of
the earliest QIC formats were not readable on their devices.

As I recall the original 20MB tapes are one of those not readable.

The problems with DVD is that the media has not been around long
enough to know how long it will last.

In the CD-R world many brands of media became unreadable in 
only a year.  Other media has a very long life. [One reason I stuck
with TDK for CD-R as they have a metalized/modified data layer
whose life expectancy is close to 70 years.  If you go to theit
site and browse you can find graphs for this.  Since the DVD
technology is more complex many companies that used to make their
own CD-Rs are using OEM producers for DVD].

DVD - at the cheap prices that make people notice - just hasn't
been around long enough.  Good media from places such as
Taiyo Yuden cost about twice as much as many known brands - and
that scares some off.

Recently the Fujifilm that had been made by Ricoh in Japan now show
a Taiyo Yuden manufactuters stamp and while they burn at 8X 
on my system - most of them fail the verify I perform imediately
after recording.  But TDK 4X record at 8X.   TDK was also made by
Ricoh [who will be introducing their own branded disks to the US
market this year] but they also have changed.

So just because brand AAA works well now does not mean that it will
be the same media from the same plant or even the same country in
just a few months. 

So you need to test the media, not the media ID's and buy a bunch
that work - and then before you use all of them up buy a few more
and see if the disk ID has changed, and if so retest again.


though rated for 8
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com