From: "John P. Linderman" <jpl.jpl@gmail.com>
To: Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com>
Cc: The Unix Heritage Society <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 16:30:35 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp9m6XiX0KEeodLLgMs8mbhgfX3izHtMsV+oMAmRbhWzcA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <125201d5a3d4$eb504c00$c1f0e400$@ronnatalie.com>
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Fair enough, Ron. I recall that we had to replace Exabyte drives more often
than 9-track drives. On the other hand, I don't recall ever having an
Exabyte tape go bad, or being unable to restore a lost file (or entire
drive). Replacing a drive was chump change compared to losing a drive.
Plus, the Exabyte tapes were compact, and could easily have a paper label
inserted to indicate what was on them when hundreds were stored
side-by-side on a shelf. My labels were roundly mocked by Tom Limoncelli in
one of his Sysadmin books, but when a user came in wanting a file restored,
being able to identify which tape contained the most recent backup was no
laughing matter (to the user).
On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 4:12 PM <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
> Our problem wasn’t so much that the Exabyte tapes would go bad as the
> drives themselves would keel over on a regular basis. It’s pretty much
> what drove us away from them. The intelligence community did a lot of
> studies on archival storage devices. The fundamental truth was to keep
> refreshed in the online domain rather than spending ages on static media.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* TUHS <tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org> *On Behalf Of *John P.
> Linderman
> *Sent:* Monday, November 25, 2019 4:08 PM
> *To:* Arthur Krewat <krewat@kilonet.net>
> *Cc:* The Unix Heritage Society <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte
>
>
>
> I'm not an expert on mag tapes, but it makes sense to me that 9-track
> tapes, where the tracks "line up" when the tape is wound onto a reel,
> suffer more "print-through" than helical scan tapes, where tracks are not
> aligned with those under them on a reel. I recall a suggestion that 9-track
> tapes should be mounted and rewound once in a while, to reduce
> print-through. We used Exabytes for disk backups for years, back when tape
> capacity exceeded disk capacity. I doubt I'll see that again, but, as noted
> I'm not an expert on mag tapes.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 1:35 PM Arthur Krewat <krewat@kilonet.net> wrote:
>
> On 11/25/2019 12:45 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 12:40:22PM -0500, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> >> PS: DAT 4mm tape drives, especially whatever Sun was using, were awful.
> > It's no secret that I enjoyed my years at Sun, but I can't defend these
> > drives, I had the same experience. When I look back on it, the only
> > tapes that I remember being reliable where the 9 track reel to reel
> > and the QIC-150. Once it got to GB sized tapes, everything seemed
> > like crap.
> >
>
> The Exabyte 5GB and up stuff was pretty good. LTOs, after having worked
> with them for the past 13 years, I can definitely say, are quit awesome.
>
> DLT tapes and especially robots, well, it took HP about 5 years to get
> the firmware right for a certain robot, the model of which, I don't
> recall ...
>
> art k.
>
>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-11-25 21:31 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-11-24 22:39 Richard Salz
2019-11-24 22:50 ` Jim Capp
2019-11-24 22:52 ` Larry McVoy
2019-11-24 22:58 ` Rico Pajarola
2019-11-24 23:45 ` Clem Cole
2019-11-25 1:41 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-11-25 1:42 ` George Michaelson
2019-11-25 3:24 ` Larry McVoy
2019-11-25 17:07 ` Al Kossow
2019-11-25 17:40 ` Arthur Krewat
2019-11-25 17:45 ` Larry McVoy
2019-11-25 17:49 ` Jon Steinhart
2019-11-25 18:34 ` Arthur Krewat
2019-11-25 21:08 ` John P. Linderman
2019-11-25 21:11 ` ron
2019-11-25 21:30 ` John P. Linderman [this message]
2019-11-25 21:38 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-11-25 18:29 ` Warner Losh
2019-11-25 3:29 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-11-25 3:34 ` [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ] Jon Steinhart
2019-11-25 3:59 ` William Pechter
2019-11-25 15:25 ` Clem Cole
2019-11-25 17:13 ` Al Kossow
2019-11-25 4:53 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-11-25 3:36 ` [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte Larry McVoy
2019-11-25 22:34 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-11-26 1:38 ` Lawrence Stewart
2019-11-25 22:46 ` Dennis Boone
2019-11-25 22:57 ` Henry Bent
2019-11-27 19:31 ` John Foust
2019-11-27 20:56 ` Arthur Krewat
2019-11-27 21:25 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-11-25 18:12 Norman Wilson
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