zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jacob Ben-david Zimmerman) (03/05/90)
Hi all! I am contemplating the purchase of a tape backup unit for my mac and am publicly asking if anyone has any information on pricing, standards, reliability, brands, etc. etc. that they would be willing to share with me. While highly mac literate, I am tape illiterate, so whatever info you have is appreciated! Thanks very much. -JBZimmerman! -- ___________ |Oreotation:The precise twist used to separate an || |Oreo and leave all the cream on one half. || ||acob Zimmerman!+> <zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> INTERNET === | <zimerman@PUCC> BITnet
gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) (03/07/90)
From article <14249@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, by zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jacob Ben-david Zimmerman): > Hi all! I am contemplating the purchase of a tape backup unit for my > mac and am publicly asking if anyone has any information on pricing, > standards, reliability, brands, etc. etc. that they would be willing to I'm posting a reply rather than mailing it because it may be of general interest. There seems to be a consensus now that the TEAC tape drives are probably the best deals. Both MacWorld and MacUser (in December 89, I think) came to this conclusion. There are 60 and 150 meg units available, but the price difference is getting so small that there may be no reason to consider the 60. I saw a rumor somewhere that TEAC is coming out with a much larger unit as well. A while back a number of people on the net assembled their own 150 meg TEACs and saved a fair amount of money. Everyone seems to be very satisfied with their drives. The construction is very simple and pretty much just requires screwdrivers. I also assembled one and am delighted with it. I've written a fairly detailed account of the process, which I would be happy to send to anyone interested. I would also like to take the opportunity here to thank people who answered some questions I had while working on the drive but whose addresses were unknown to our mailer. It cost me about $550 to build the drive myself. The cheapest prices I have seen by mail are $849 for a CMS unit from MacLand (800-333-3353) and $700 from Diskette Gazette (800-222-6032). The latter takes its power from the external floppy port, so would need an external power supply to be used with a Mac II. These commercial units presumably come with software which you would need to buy separately if you build your own. However, with something like Retrospect you would have software which is most likely much superior to whatever is bundled with the drives. Gary Davis
werner@milano.sw.mcc.com (Werner Uhrig) (03/07/90)
to follow-up and add to the account of gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) in this group: > There seems to be a consensus now that the TEAC tape drives are probably the best deals. Both MacWorld and MacUser (in December 89, I think) came to this conclusion. There are 60 and 150 meg units available, but the price difference is getting so small that there may be no reason to consider the 60. I saw a rumor somewhere that TEAC is coming out with a much larger unit as well. all correct. TEAC has a 600meg tape about ready ... probably not at a competitive price to the 150megger during the first years (gotta collect those bucks from folks with sugar-daddies first,right?!) > A while back a number of people on the net assembled their own 150 meg TEACs and saved a fair amount of money. Everyone seems to be very satisfied with their drives. The construction is very simple and pretty much just requires screwdrivers. correct also. we bought 25 of the bare drives and then went separate ways in buying enclosures and software. I still run a mailing-list for occasional communications among the group (was teac@rascal.ics.utexas.edu - now more generically better addressed as tape-hackers@rascal.ics.utexas.edu) and I have all the traffic archived if anyone wants it (FTPable from RASCAL are files mac/.../teac.*). If you want to build a single drive today, you'll find pointers to single-quantity price for drive of <$390, enclosure with power-supply <$30 and PD-software for A/UX but not Mac-OS (commercial alternatives range from ~$50 to ~$150 for Retrospect) I also assembled one and am delighted with it. I've written a fairly detailed account of the process, which I would be happy to send to anyone interested. I would also like to take the opportunity here to thank people who answered some questions I had while working on the drive but whose addresses were unknown to our mailer. that account is also in the RASCAL-archive, I believe. Cheers, ---Werner -- --------------------------> please send REPLIES to <------------------------ INTERNET: werner@cs.utexas.edu or: werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet # 128.83.144.1) UUCP: ...<well-connected-site>!cs.utexas.edu!werner