28 Nov
2006
28 Nov
'06
12:32 p.m.
I'm guessing that this is a problem which, if not
affecting others
yet, will soon start affecting others who are relying upon such drives
for backing up and restoring critical data.
Decomposing rubber components has been a problem for digital tape transports
for at least a decade or more now. I know of no vendor who supplies
replacements for the dozens of different QIC transports, for example.
Crisis Computer used to fix HP transports, but they do not sell parts, only
expensive refurbed complete units.
This should be a business opportunity for someone, but I don't know of
anyone who is selling replacement rubber parts for digital transports.
Anyone who has historically significant data on tape should get it OFF of
that media as quickly as possible and onto something that is more easy to
migrate in the future.
28 Nov
28 Nov
7:52 a.m.
Al Kossow wrote:
Anyone who has historically significant data on tape
should get it OFF of
that media as quickly as possible and onto something that is more easy to
migrate in the future.
DLT [tapes] and drives seem to be holding up pretty well. Quarter inch tapes
seem to be pretty good, but the drives are becoming a problem.
As for DAT... I wouldn't touch it any more. Too many bad experiences.
Others, such as open-reel, I don't know about.
I'd certainly trust DLT more than I would home-burned optical media (CD or
DVD) though.
4:22 p.m.
Al Kossow wrote:
Decomposing rubber components has been a problem for
digital tape
transports for at least a decade or more now. I know of no vendor who
supplies replacements for the dozens of different QIC transports, for
example.
My experience of DAT drives is that they would eat tape for fun even
when new ... one or two units seem fine but I had half a dozen
replaced when I was at DEC.
DLT always had the decency to fail in non-destructive ways, the tape
always
survived intact.
Anyone who has historically significant data on tape
should get it
OFF of that media as quickly as possible and onto something that is
more easy to migrate in the future.
But to what should it be migrated. Don't all tape units rely
on rollers somewhere? CD and/or DVD doesn't have a reputation
that fills me with confidence and rotating disks need to be
replicated and kept running otherwise who knows what state they'll
be in when I do want to read something. Plus the disk capacity
explosion seems to have stalled a little - I was expecting 1TB
drives to be standard and cheap by now.
Antonio
5:19 p.m.
On 28/11/06 21:22, "arcarlini at iee.org" <arcarlini at iee.org> wrote:
DLT always had the decency to fail in non-destructive
ways, the tape
always survived intact.
Oo no, when the spool motor gets out of sync with the cart motor (or the
cart motor dies) much snappage takes place resulting in me swearing a lot
while I manually unspool an entire cart's worth of tape from the spool reel
:) To be fair this doesn't happen as often as snapped take-up leaders or
dead PSUs in external boxes, but it does happen.
But to what should it be migrated. Don't all tape
units rely
on rollers somewhere? CD and/or DVD doesn't have a reputation
DLTs and Ultriums all use metal rollers, no traces of rubber anywhere,
fortunately.
--
Adrian/Witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer
collection?
7:50 p.m.
At 09:22 PM 11/28/2006 +0000, you wrote:
Al Kossow wrote:
You haven't lost the leader inside the drive? Or inside the cartridge? I
have. It's delicate work, rethreading a DLT-VI.
[Philosophy] People are flexible enough to make any theory look good
for a while. --Jaron Lanier, in his Karma Vertigo essay
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Decomposing rubber components has been a problem
for digital tape
transports for at least a decade or more now. I know of no vendor who
supplies replacements for the dozens of different QIC transports, for
example.
My experience of DAT drives is that they would eat tape for fun even
when new ... one or two units seem fine but I had half a dozen
replaced when I was at DEC.
DLT always had the decency to fail in non-destructive ways, the tape
always
survived intact.
8:34 p.m.
On 29/11/06 00:50, "Tom Peters" <tpeters at mixcom.com> wrote:
You haven't lost the leader inside the drive? Or inside the cartridge? I
have. It's delicate work, rethreading a DLT-VI.
Nah, I do it at least once a month :)
(then again I *am* a field engineer so what do I expect)
--
Adrian/Witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer
collection?
6450
days inactive
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5 comments
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participants (5)
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aek＠bitsavers.org -
arcarlini＠iee.org -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
tpeters＠mixcom.com -
witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk