Dumping to an exabyte tape drive

[George Goble]

In article <882 at iiasa.UUCP> wnp at iiasa.UUCP (wolf paul) writes:
>In article <25394 at shamash.cdc.com> zeke at shamash.cdc.com (Robert Scott) writes:
>>	
>>	Example for a full dump command to a Sony P6-120 tape using
>                                              ^^^^^^
>
>Could someone explain these tape designations? Over here, I cannot
>find P6 tapes, only P5. We are using TDK P5-90 tapes, the genuine
>Exabyte "EXATAPE" cartridge which was packaged with our SUN-supplied
>drive does not have any "P" designation, but is labelled, "112m".
>
[stuff deleted]
>
>What would be a convenient way under UNIX (SunOS) to actually
>determine the capacity of any such tape?

"P5-90" tapes are the 112m tapes, the longest you can get. They are
slightly longer than the American P6-120. A P5-90 (Sony) holds approx
2.45 to 2.5 GB on the EXB-8200.  A P6-120 holds 2.32 GB. This assumes 
your driver can write past LEOT to PEOT (physical EOT).  On the EXB-8500,
this difference will be much more pronounced, 4.6GB to 5.0GB.  We had
bad luck with TDK 3 years ago during initial Exabyte testing (25% rewrite
rate), but maybe they are better now. Sony & Fuji came out best.

Do you know of anyplace to get Sony P5-90's in the USA? or can somebody
in AU export them to USA (qty = several thousand) at a reasonable price?
I just picked up our last tape order (qty 1000, $5.47 each) from
a local audio store (Good Vibes), Sony P6-120MP's.

--ghg