roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (12/03/85)
I'm considering buying some 300' reels of magtape. When you want to store just a few files, or have something that's too big for uucp, it's the cheapest way to go. There is, however, a catch. At the comp center in college, we got some once and discovered that we couldn't use them on our TU-10; it kept loosing vacuum and such. DEC mumbled something about the reels being too light and the hub motors expecting greater rotational inertia. We didn't really believe them but they never solved the problem and eventually we gave up. Has anybody had similar problems? Has anybody used 300' reels with success? Was our experience a fluke, or simply our equipment showing its age? Do modern transports deal with small reels better? If enough people respond (by mail), I'll post a summary. Let me know what type of drive/controller you have, and any other details you can think of (i.e. density, block size, O/S, tar/tp/dump/???, pom). -- Roy Smith <allegra!phri!roy> System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016