Tape drives?

[Mntsnow]

Hmmmm 10 words or less.

1. Yes
2. no
3. descent
4. cheap way to get into tape.

Wow 9 words (if you dont count the rest of the stuff) /forum/biggrin.gif

Mntsnow

[Mntsnow]

Now for the real answers without being a smart@**

I use to use a colorado. They are a descent quality drive (the tapes are inexpensive compared to a JAZ disk and hold more) But the biggest drawback on them is their sustained transfer rate. If you are truely backing up 10 gigs I would say plan on about 10-12 hours using one of these drives. Just set your backup to run automaticly at night and remember to put a tape in the drive prior to going to bed and in the morning you should have it done.

Mntsnow

ps. If you have other questions feel free to shoot me an email or post them here.

[reddog4629]

Thanks for the reply. I'm looking at a 7/14G (7G native/up to 14G compressed)
travan colorado. Parallel port external has a sustained xfer rate of 45MB/s. If I back-up
say 5G that's bout 2hrs. at about 1.3/1
compression. Is there a way to connect my printer and tape drive into say a hub so I won't have to disconnect the printer each
time I want to run the tape? Would buy an internal (90MB/s) but all ide is used.

[This message has been edited by reddog4629 (edited 11-03-1999).]

[reddog4629]

I'm looking at a HP colorado tape drive. Anyone have one? Any problems or what other drives are good for back-up. Around 10Gig.
I would like to know everything there is to know about tape drives in 10 words or less. /forum/biggrin.gif