Want 8mm tape drive experience

[Mark Benard]

In article <524 at trux.UUCP> car at trux.UUCP (Chris Rende) writes:
>We are considering the purchase of an 8mm tape drive for backup purposes.
>
>I would appreciate any info/experience that anyone can offer.
>Price, speed, service, interfacing, unix-able-ness, storage, etc...
>
>I have a Nixdorf Targon M35/50 (Pyramid 9810).
>
>The plan would be to connect the new 8mm tape drive to the system as drive 1.
>(Drive 0 is the 9track tape drive that came with the system).

We have a Cybernetics CY-8200-PY2 unit on a Pyramid 9815 (OSx 4.4c) and are
perfectly happy.  Since we got it up and running, there have not been any
problems.  It is plugged into the back of the 9 track unit and runs nightly.

There were some initial problems getting it up and running last summer.  I
cannot provide all the details because I was out of town at the time and the
person responsible for the installation no longer works here.  I believe that
the primary problem was that Cybernetics had just changed the microcode in
the unit and it was not quite right when we first got it.  Then after an
exchange, there were some interfacing problems, but the local Pyramid
maintenance person gave us a hand in getting it going.  Since then we have
had absolutely no problems with it or the IOP.

Ours is a 2.2GB unit, and it was priced at 5,500 last June (which may or may
not have included an educational discount).  My system manager did a lot of
news posting and telephoning, and this was the only product that got uniform
positive remarks for use with a Pyramid system.

Since then the product has been "improved", since 8mm technology now allows
higher densities and speeds.

Mark
-- 
Mark Benard
Department of Computer Science     INTERNET & BITNET: mb at rex.cs.tulane.edu
Tulane University                  USENET:   rex!mb
New Orleans, LA 70118