[rescue] Re: 8mm tape media

[Robert Novak]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, Bill Bradford wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 19, 2001 at 07:04:07PM -0500, Eric Hall wrote:

> > Hello All, I just picked up one the Sun branded 8mm 5gig tape
> > drives. Does anyone know what type of media this beast uses? Will
> > any 8mm tape media work?  Thanks, Eric H
> 
> Those are probably normal Exabyte 8505 or 8505XL drives.
> Normal 8mm 60/90/120M media will work.

I've only seen 54m, 112m, and 160m for 8mm MP (metal particle) tape. AME
(mammoth/8900) and AIT have different lengths but they're pretty much
guaranteed not to work in the 5gig drive. (the 60/90/120m are 4mm dds/dds2
lengths)

If your drive is not an 8505XL or 85058 or 870x , you're maxed at 112m 8mm
tapes, up to 5gb native/10gb compressed. The XL and Eliant drives support
160m, which will give you 7gb native/14gb compressed.

I haven't been able to find much of a difference between an 8505XL, an
8700, and an Eliant 820 drive other than marketing name and pricing
(sometimes). They seem to have the same speed and capacity. Is there
actually a difference? And does anyone have a spare Eliant sitting around? 

--Rob


Robert Novak, Indyramp Consulting * rnovak at indyramp.com * indyramp.com/~rnovak
        "And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
           Maybe this year will be better than the last...." -- counting crows