From: mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) Subject: Re: 500MB Viper Archive Tape Drives (?) Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 12:23:03 GMT
drew@lethe.gts.org (Drew Sullivan) writes:
>In article <1993Jun16.031115.11663@super.org> pcolsen@super.org (Peter C Olsen) writes:
>>I'm looking for help from someone who has used Viper Archive Tape
>>drives, particularly if someone with experience using DC6250 tapes.
>>
>>I just bought and installed a Viper Archive 2150 tape drive for use
>>under Linux. The person who sold it to me told me that it would run
>>reliably with 250MB tapes --- and that I could get about 500MB by
>>compressing my data. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Is
>>it reliable? Does it damage the drive?
>>
>>I'd appreciate any information.
>The only difference between the 150 and the 250mb tapes is the
>tape length (600vs1000ft)
That is correct.
> and no using the 250mb tapes wont be
>a problem.
I had been using them for a long time with no problems. Although, Archive
does warn that repeated long term use of those tapes can impare the drive's
ability to write on 150MB (600ft) tapes. Something to do with head wear
patterns. I thought it was silly at first until I heard someone confirm it.
We still have no troubles reading or writing either.
> As for the compression ratio that total depends on
>your data. Gifs don't compress at all, text compresses by a
>factor of 2. I never run compressed on my backups since a single
>bit error means the rest of the compressed file (and with linux tar
>in compressed mode; the rest of your data on tape) is useless.
Totally agree. I NEVER recommend using software compression on streaming tar
tape backups. Even if you never have problems with the above (which is not
likely), you will have compatibility problems and normally slow down the
backup process to a point where there is no chance the drive will ever stream.
Now HARDWARE compression is a different issue. That seems
to be just fine.
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