[comp.sys.dec] Does DEC not like Exabyte?

jeremy@misadel.oz (Jeremy Begg) (03/23/90)

I have just been reading the March 16 edition of "Computerworld Australia"
which discusses the Exabyte drive and DEC's opinion and reaction.  The
article says:

        "DEC claims the Exabyte system is not safe enough for DEC to
         endorse or include with DEC systems.  According to DEC's
         marketing manager for storage, Tom Gayford, DEC tested the
         Exabyte system in the US and found it to be unreliable on
         the smaller VMS machines...the Exabyte system system was
         reliable only on Unix machines."

This seems a rather strange state of affairs; do they mean it worked on the
larger VMS machines, or more likely, tested the Exabyte only as a means of
providing a backup device for their workstations?  I was aware that people
were having trouble getting their Exabytes to work on their VAXstation
3100s, but I believe that these problems are fixed in the latest Exabyte
and are further reduced by VMS 5.3 which provides a better SCSI driver.

Does anyone from DEC, or anyone else in the know, have anything to say on,
or expand upon, Mr Gayford's comments?  Having bought a VS3100 myself I am
currently thinking about backup options.  The thought of spending each week
loading 200 floppy disks does not really excite me :-(

        Jeremy Begg

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tihor@acf4.NYU.EDU (Stephen Tihor) (03/27/90)

There are some structural problems with the current generation of
EXABYTEs in nonBACKUP situations.  There have been extensive reports of
problems with the small (slow) VAXstations that have not been reported
with larger VAXstations.  Many of these are addressed with the right
dip switchs and the most recent ROMs.  Since the support for such
things vary with the repackager there are substancial variations.

The general difficulties are sufficient that we have decided to wait
for DAT from DEC.