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larry merlau

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Delton, Michigan
i have just ran into a head ache her at work... the DLT tape back-up has just given me a hardware error:eek: this has been a rock solide back up system for nearly ten years now its givin up ,, if i get another one the heads wont read the old tapes correct? any suggestions on what i can do?
 
Larry,

No worries. You should be able to find compatible hardware... lots of places sell it, precisely for this reason. What's the make and model of the dead one?

Thanks,

Bill
 
make..model

well bill the make is a quantum,and model DLT 5000. but will the new one read my existing tapes?? we use this for archiving back jobs and have 10 yrs worth ,, back in the old days the casset version we had wouldnt read the old tapes head position wrong???/
 
back in the old days the casset version we had wouldnt read the old tapes head position wrong???/

Sounds like you're confusing DAT with DLT. DAT (old cassette-type form factor) was originally a video storage tape, and used a helical-scan (writing on the angle) method for writing. We had issues with them also, and I was glad to gradually get rid of them. Though the even older 8mm tapes were worse.

I thought the DLT's were not plagued with those incompatibilities.

ps: Disk is cheap. I'm coming more and more to think that you should just keep stuff on disk. Use tape (or disk) backup systems for disaster recovery, not archiving.
 
Sounds like you're confusing DAT with DLT. DAT (old cassette-type form factor) was originally a video storage tape, and used a helical-scan (writing on the angle) method for writing. We had issues with them also, and I was glad to gradually get rid of them. Though the even older 8mm tapes were worse.

I thought the DLT's were not plagued with those incompatibilities.

ps: Disk is cheap. I'm coming more and more to think that you should just keep stuff on disk. Use tape (or disk) backup systems for disaster recovery, not archiving.

yup art the cassetes were the 8mm and were a night mare,, i sure hope your right about the other, its headed to the puter dude to get a thourgh cleaning.. hopefully that solves it.. it basically stop recognizing the tapes, just goes from rewind to searching and back and forth fast. and gets nowwhere.. as for the disk is cheap thought those arent solid state either are they?
 
Update

well the cleaning didnt save it, and so they got witht he dlt company and they suggested anew model got it hooked it up and it wont accept our old tapes:( so the tech guy looked at it and said he figured the tapes were nicked as the machne was dying,, well that was just an excuse for i dont know what is wrong ,,yes that could have happened but the tape he had was 3 yrs old so i dont think the machine was dying for 3 years so i went backa d got anew tape and the machine would see it either.. come to find out after the new machine was hooked up and tried several times that the scsi card needs to be changed out,,,, you would have thought that they could have told us that was needed when tryin to get a model that would read the old tapes and write and read to the new ones.. so now wera waiting for the new scsi card and wil see if that solves our troubles,, just mear 356 dollars and it is supposed to work but if it doesnt and the card is opened we own the nice littel card that is useless to us.. now there is a plan of how to make money and quarntee you have job security:rolleyes:
 
hmmmm :huh:

Have you checked that your tape software supports the new model drive?

SCSI is usually pretty forgiving with regard to different speeds and generations. As long as the contoller is of the same basic standard then they should negotiate speeds to the highest standard supported by both.

IE plug a SCSI 320 device into a SCSI 160 controller and they both run at 160, and vice versa.

Got some actual model numbers and we should be able to look up the tech specs and see what they should work with?

$395 is a pretty high end SCSI controller just to run a tape drive, so even if your existing controller wont work there may be a cheaper option.

Ian
 
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