[comp.sys.hp] Second source for SCAISI DAT on HP9000/s300 ?

dsn@elctr.UUCP (Dan Soeren Nielsen) (05/15/91)

Hey there !

I have been looking for a DAT , and have looked for second source DAT's as well
do anyone have experience with installation of non HP DATs on a HP9000/s300.
I am looking at a GigaTape (German product) which has a standard SCSI interface
will it be possible to make this work ?.

My second question: do anyone have experience with the compressing DATs I have
seen products capable of storing upto 8 GBytes on one tape, is it more riskfull
than the standard of 1.3 GBytes ??

Thanks in advance

Dan Soren Nielsen, ElektronikCentralen, venlighedsvej 4, 2970 Hoersholm, Denmark
Disclaimer: This request is not an expression of the polecyicy of EC, or me

mark@hpcpbla.HP.COM (Mark Simms) (05/24/91)

>> I have been looking for a DAT , and have looked for second source
>> DAT's as well do anyone have experience with installation of non HP
>> DATs on a HP9000/s300.  I am looking at a GigaTape (German product)
>> which has a standard SCSI interface will it be possible to make
>> this work ?.

I believe that the original GigaTape product uses a proprietary format
that is not compatible with the DDS format used by HP and most other
DAT drive manufacturers.  I believe GigaTape were working on a DDS
drive, but I have not heard of any announcements from them.

The other main manufacturers of DDS SCSI drives are Archive and
WangDAT.  I do not know whether these will work successfully with an
HP9000 s300, but they have generic SCSI interfaces.

>> My second question: do anyone have experience with the compressing
>> DATs I have seen products capable of storing upto 8 GBytes on one
>> tape, is it more riskfull than the standard of 1.3 GBytes ??

The data compressing drives have the same error rate as
non-compressing drives.  That is, the proportion of host data that
would be unrecoverable due to a failure is the same whether it is
compressed or not.  The addition of the compression hardware
potentially adds an extra point of failure, but the chance of such
a failure is so small that it does not affect reliability.

Mark Simms

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Opinions expressed are my own and are not intended to be an official
statement by Hewlett-Packard Company
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Name:         Mark Simms
Profession:   Software Engineer
Occupation:   Research and Development
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Computer Peripherals Division
Unix-mail:    mark%hpcpbla@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Address:      Filton Road, Bristol BS12 6QZ, United Kingdom
Phone:        +44-272-799910x22174
Fax:          +44-272-236091
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