On Tue, May 22, 2001 at 09:43:01PM -0600, Rick Kelly wrote:

> Shannon Hendrix said:
> 
> >Right now 4GB 4mm is all I can afford and it's a struggle to just backup
> >my personal workstation.
> >
> >Even if I got one of the $700 or so tape drives that does have the
> >capacity, the media prices are very high.
> 
> Exabyte has done a big disservice to small computers networks with
> moderate amounts of diskspace.

I think media companies are ripping us off, and bad.

Tape drive manufacturers are increasing capacity, but the prices are
high, the media is high, and I really don't think they are doing a good
job. More speed and capacity, but they are still not as reliable as they
need to be.

I don't really know about VXA or AIT, but then they are too expensive
anyway.  VXA media prices are not coming down, not sure about AIT (or
if they are even any good).

I would have thought that DLT would be more reasonable now, but drives
are expensive and so are tapes.

> I have 2 Exabyte 8700LT 8mm drives (8500 in disguise), and I can squeeze
> 10 gigs per tape on these. And the tapes are about $6. But exabyte doesn't
> make these any more, just the Mammoth drives with $100 tapes. That's 4 times
> the capacity of my drives at almost 17 times the price for media.

I started to get some of those on eBay or something, but I worry about
getting a drive they have abandoned.

-- 
shannon@widomaker.com  _________________________________________________
______________________/ armchairrocketscientistgraffitiexenstentialist
 "And in billows of might swell the Saxons before her,-- Unite, oh
 unite!  Or the billows burst o'er her!" -- Downfall of the Gael