Tape media

From: Gunther Schadow <gunther_at_aurora.regenstrief.org>
Date: Sun Mar 23 19:44:00 2003

> Jerome Fine replies:
>
> I would not mind at all if there were physical differences that
> were required by the TK70. But when the ONLY two differences
> were the "II" after the name "CompacTape" and the price, I
> tend to think that perhaps DEC was ...

Yes, in the case of ComapcTape I vs. II DEC simply ripped people,
but that's normal in the business. I am just amazed about how
much corporate customers are willin to let themselves be ripped
off by the Computer industry. How about a rack railkit for a
$10000 FibreChannel switch for which they charge an additional
$300 (for a few pieces of sheet metal with screws!)

> In addition, I also heard that in some cases, the TKQ50 controller
> was unable to use the drive in a satisfactory manner. In those cases
> the TKQ70 controller was needed for the TK50 drive. I have
> actually tried the TKQ70 / TK50 combination and it works quite
> well. It is still the TK50 drive with only the capacity of the TK50,
> but it does operate a bit faster.

Yes, I tried it to in order to write a TK50 tape for my uVAX-II
from my VAX6k. Now that I write this, I never really tried if
writing to the /dev/mt2l device would have done the trick with
writing TK50 format on TK70 drive. I doubt it would.

> I realize that the TK70 drive arrived years after the TK50. Does
> anyone know if the device drivers that can use the TK50 can always
> use the TK70 as well?

For all I know it's MSCP, so the driver may not be different.

-Gunther
Received on Sun Mar 23 2003 - 19:44:00 GMT