[rescue] Exabyte 8500 questions

[Dave McGuire]

On July 26, Michael Hansen wrote:
> I just got what seems to be a working 
> Exabyte 8500 for $3. It came with two
> tapes - a 54 meter and a 112 meter, and
> ufsdumps to both completed without errors.

  Cool!  Nice deal.

> There is one thing that is making me nervous,
> though. The drive only seems to make tape
> drive type noises at the beginning and end
> of the dump. The rest of the time it is
> virtually silent. By tape drive type noises,
> I mean the "whirrrrrrp... grind-grind-grind"
> that I am used to from PeeCee cartridge drives
> and Archive 1/4" drives I have used in
> the past. Are 8500s (and possibly other 8mm
> drives) supposed to be this quiet?

  Yes, 8mm drives are VERY quiet except when they are loading and
unloading, and wrapping and unwrapping the tape from around the head.

> The other question I have is, can anyone
> point me toward a source of reasonably priced
> 112 meter x 8mm media for this thing?

  eBay.  You can often find large batches of them there, both new and
used.

    -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire                  "Needing a calculator indicates that
St. Petersburg, FL              your .emacs file is incomplete." -Joshua Boyd