8mm drives on Pyramid

[Tom Adams - 235-7459]

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).
>
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.
>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).

I've had a hell of a time getting any results from 2 Megatape drives.
When I went to buy the drives I asked around, and was told that the 
Megatape was more reliable than the other drive in the PRISM catalog.
I bought two, and was only able to crash my IOP for months.  Meanwhile
the FE told me that you couldn't unterminate the Kennedy 9 track or
change it's address, lots of folks on the net seemed to have no problems
at all (I did get lot's of identical dip switch advice), and I couldn't
get the damn things to work at all.  I was also going to daisy chain from 
an existing 9 track, and quickly noticed that most folks were wither not 
daisy chaining, or were only daisy-chianing the 8mm drives together.

When I upgraded (9825 -> MIS 4/2) Pyramid came up with a one page sheet 
quoting board rev levels required to use the 8mm drives (and a big 
disclaimer saying this did not imply any support for 8mm drives), which
explained my IOP crashes, and driver time outs (I think).

After the upgrade, and lot's of effort on my part (new cables, etc), 
I can use the drives for tar, but dump won't work and cpio writes a tape
but won't read it.  It does work, kinda, and beats 22 9 track tapes, but
it's still nasty.

I'm not impressed with Pyramid assitance on the Megatape, Megatape support
services ("I've never heard of any problems, it works fine on lot's of
Pyramid's"), or Pyramid's speed at providing a reasonable high density
backup alternative.

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