NITPICK ALERT!!
Actually, there are FIVE formats: DAT, DDS, DDS-2, DDS-3, and DDS-4.
I don't know the exact differences between DAT and DDS, but most
drives won't accept a DAT tape...
NITPICK OFF!!
Does anyone know if the DDS specs are in the public domain? I've
always used hardware compression, and haven't had any problems,
but perhaps I've been lucky...
I do know if you record a DDS-3 tape on a DDS-2 drive that thinks
it is a DDS tape, you can't read it on a DDS-4 drive, but the DDS-2
drive it was written on reads it ok...
Clint
On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Pete Turnbull wrote:
On Feb 14, 6:53, Doc wrote:
On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> >There are currently 5 DAT formats (DDS, DDS-1, DDS-2, DDS-3, and
DDS-4)
> >and all are backward compatible.
>
> But, can a drive from manufacturer "A" read a DDS-1 tape written on
> manufacturer "B's" drive? It's been my understanding that
sometimes
even
> different model drives from the same
manufacturer can't read the same
tape.
I've never seen that with either 4mm DDS-x or with 8mm DAT formats.
We do classroom loads of RS/6000s from tape quite often, making
tapes on, and installing from, a very wide assortment of drives. I've
never seen a load fail if the drive was rated for the tape format.
Nitpick alert: DDS = DDS-1 (ie, it's the same thing -- originally called
DDS but now sometimes called DDS-1 so that it's clearly not one of the
later versions). So there are only 4 formats, not 5.
Nitpick 2: 8mm is not DDS or DAT. It's Exabyte videotape.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York