On May 21, 23:25, Eric Smith wrote:
> On May 21, Gary Hildebrand wrote:
> > I have a quick question: I just procured an exabyte EXB8505ST and was
> > wondering if any of you knew what tape it uses and what the capacity is
> > in MB. Got this at a swap meet for the case, but if the drive is
> > useable, I'll keep it together.
>
> Native 5G (on 120 meter tapes?). More with compression. Uses 8mm data
> tapes.
112m, actually.
> Some 8mm video tapes (typically 112 meter?) have been known to
> work, but if you go that route, don't use cheap ones. It's rumored that
> Sony changed their 8mm tape formulation at some point to prevent their
> video tapes from working in Exabyte drives, since they wanted to sell
> higher-priced data-grade tapes.
>
> Personally, I use data grade tapes anyhow.
> And yes, I've personally verified that the error rates on DDS tapes from
> the major manufacturers are in fact lower than the error rates on the
same
> manufacturer's audio DAT tapes. Whether that's true of 8mm tapes as
well,
> I don't know, as I haven't done any comparisons.
When I got my Exabytes (8200's), I had a mix of video and data tapes. I've
never tested them properly, but it seems like the data tapes are indeed
better. Tip: buy a cleaning cartridge.
There's a whole lot of technical info (including the manuals, firmware
notes, upgrades) on ExaByte's support web pages:
http://www.exabyte.com/home/suppserv.html
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Received on Sun May 21 2000 - 19:20:36 BST