At 16:37 06/09/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>I've got a 7978 HPIB tape drive that I want to replace with a 7980S
because of
>the SCSI interface.  Does anybody have any good/bad experiences with this
model?
>We don't do a ton of reel-to-reel tapes anymore, but it's handy to have one
>around.

Hello Bob,

We have used such a drive since about 1991, on a daily basis.  At a very
minimum, it will backup user transaction log files and patient appointment
records in the morning, and job STDLISTs in the afternoons.  Due to the
non-critical nature of this usage, it is often asked to read and write to
sub-standard media (old tapes used over and over again).

The drive was used on a UNIX system for several yeas before we installed
it (to replace an HPIB device).  The sum total of problems we've had with
the unit are:  1.  a burned out fuse.  2.  a runaway tape that required
no more than power-cycling the unit.

How's that for reliability?

Ron Burnett
Women's & Children's Healthcare
Melbourne, Australia
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