8 May
2007
8 May
'07
4:08 p.m.
On Tuesday 08 May 2007 06:56, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at
yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
Hm, I have a couple of Exabyte drives, but no media to go with them. I got
them along with a whole mess of other stuff that was part of an IBM disk
array setup -- SSA? Something like that, I can't recall. I remember the
guy I got them from telling me that the tapes would hold something like 20G
each. Does this sound like those tapes? If I'd known that a video tape
would work in there I might have tried one, though I don't have any 8mm
tapes handy at the moment.
How common were drives which could read these? I
suspect the answer
is "not very"! If anyone has one, how reliable was/is the media?
I've got a couple of such Sony cartridges here dating from 1991; one does
call itself a data cartridge (QG-112M) - the other one is a PAL/SECAM
90-minute Video8 tape (P5-90MP).
Actually, they're pretty common from what I have seen, but then again, I
work with lots of systems that use them. Those are Exabyte cartridges - you
need to find an Exabyte drive. Pretty common on eBay, expect to pay
around $15. The Exabyte drives are SCSI, and are pretty reliable. There are
several models, but since we're talking about the older tapes, and since one
of them is a re-used video tape, you're looking for an Exabyte 8200 or 8500,
I'd say. Those drives are 5 1/4" FH form factor SCSI drives. Both tapes and drives seem pretty reliable, and using
video tape for data
DOES work, although it's not technically reccomended. Be patient with those
old Exabyte drives though, they take a long time to do anything (like open
the door, rewind...) and need to be properly connected and terminated to be
able to open the door, or disconnected totally (i.e., if you have a external
drive with a terminator plugged into the drive, but it's not connected to
the computer, it won't open)
Hm. Maybe when I run across these next I'll have to note the model numbers in
here. :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin