New Finds Today - Specifically the TK25

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Wed May 24 07:45:56 2000

>John R. Keys Jr. wrote:

> Had a good day today as I got a digital TK25 with cable

Jerome Fine replies:

>From personal experience, a TK25 is about 25% faster than a TK50 (AFTER
the tape has been tensioned the first time it is inserted - which may take as long
as a few minutes - but can often be done while other things are happening - like
booting the OS). In RT-11, I also use VBGEXE to increase the size of the
buffers when I do a "/VERIFY:ONLY" command (yes I know - that notation
can't be used with VBGEXE which requires CSI switches). I may have a spare
controller. Do you have anything to swap? I may also have a few spare cartridges.

The drive uses standard DC600A tapes (1/4" QIC cartridges). The only drawback
compared to a TK50 is that the capacity is less than 2 RT-11 partitions, but when
it comes to doing a "/VERIFY:ONLY" on a TK50, it takes so long that I never
used the TK50 for regular backup, only as an off-site exchange media. And then,
a VERIFY operation consisted of doing a RESTORE to a scratch partition followed
by a BINCOM with the original file or partition.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Wed May 24 2000 - 07:45:56 BST