8mm Cartridge Tape Drives

[E. Scott Menter]

Well, we're going with the Delta Microsystems unit.  As any of you who
requested "Exabyte.replies" from the archive server could see, the
majority of the respondents made the same decision.  Here were my reasons:

(1) The guy from Peripheral Devices was very attentive and helpful (they
    front for Delta Micro).

(2) I liked the driver, especially the "bytes left" statistic.  Cute.

(3) The technical guy I called once with a question answered it quickly
    and easily.

(4) The Exabyte, from Perfect Byte, came with an "si" driver.  Too bad,
    I have "sd" controllers.  Somebody should've asked first.

(5) The Delta Micro has a terminator switch on the back so that you can
    hook it up either alone or on the SCSI bus with other devices easily.
    It also has a SCSI ID selector.

(6) If I buy a system without a s/w driver, and it doesn't have all the
    features I want (in the s/w, that is), to whom do I complain?  Sun?
    No thanks.

(7) I get the first year extended warranty for $150.  After that, it's
    a monthly fee.  Perfect Byte came in a little lower here, as they
    did on the unit price, but hey, I have an "sd" controller.  And how
    come nobody called me to find out how I liked the unit?

However, in case your site isn't in quite as good a position as an
investment bank to afford the extra grand or more per unit for a box with
software included, I'd think about one without.  In general, everybody
seems to have reported okay performance one way or another.  That's what
made the decision difficult, actually.

Thanks to those of you who were able to provide me with information.  I
hope that this will suffice as a reply to those many, many more of you who
requested the information I got.

Now:  what do people know about read/write optical drives?  Sony has one
(640MB, I think).  Any experience?  Thanks.

Scott Menter
Shearson Lehman Hutton
escott at shearson.com
uunet!slcpi!escott