celeste@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Celeste C. Stokely) (01/12/89)
Like everyone else, I want to buy an Exabyte tape drive. A vendor just
told me of a hitch, though. He says that tapes written under any driver
he's found for SunOS 3.5 can NOT be read under SunOS 4.0!!!!! It has
something to do with fixed length records being written under 3.5, and
variable length records being written under 4.0.
For us, this absolutely won't do. We won't be running 4.0 for many, many
months. Is he making this up? Is there a driver for this tape drive I can
get from somewhere that will solve this problem? Is this just another bad
dream?
All help greatly appreciated.
..Celeste Stokely
Coherent Thought Inc.
UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!celeste Domain: celeste@coherent.com
Internet: coherent!celeste@ames.arpa or ...@sun.com or ...@uunet.uu.net
VOX: 415-493-8805
SNAIL:3350 W. Bayshore Rd. #205, Palo Alto CA 94303fish@sun.com (Lorenz Fish) (01/18/89)
in issue v7n97 Celeste Stokely asks the musical question > Is there a driver for this tape drive I can > get from somewhere that will solve this problem? We are using an Exabyte from Delta Microsystems (Livermore, CA) to do backups for a small group of various Sun machines. It hangs on the SCSI port of a diskless 3/50 and (obviously) talks over the network to get to filesystems on our few diskful machines. We got the machine just before planning to "upgrade" from SunOS 3.4 to 4.0. Without a whole lot of trouble we were able to backup the entire server disk set, install 4.0 (repartitioning etc.), cross our fingers, reinstall the 8mm drive drivers and remake the 3/50 kernel and presto: restore the whole shootin' match. Bottom line is this can be done and it isn't too painful (anxious maybe!). The Delta Drive comes with a basket of useful software besides the requisite UNIX drivers. This includes a reasonable diagnostic program but most important is a full-blown remote backup facility they call 'bud'. With it you can construct a complete backup schedule for dump or tar type activity and fire it off with your rc.local. The tech support people at Delta are outstanding! They were patient and thorough with all the questions I had for them (even through pinning a problem down to a flakey 3/50 SCSI port). They were willing to stick with me until the problem was solved. I recommend the Delta 8mm drive from my experience. I like the machine, I like the software, I like the company. Their software works as described. The hardware seems tough but we've only been messing with it since November. I have no affiliation with Delta or its distributors except as a satisfied customer. You can call Delta at: 415-449-6881. In this neck of the woods (NY) the distributor is Peripheral Devices 215-640-0446. Lorenz Fish uucp:...sun!gotham!marine!fish Technical Analysis Group Marine Midland Bank Manhattan