At 5/11/99 04:50 PM , Denys Beauchemin wrote:
>X-no-Archive:yes
>The problem is even worse than that.  If you wish to restore something 30
>years from now consider the following:
>
>1- Do you have a device that can read the medium?  (Quick test, how may
>sites have 800 BPI tapes?)
>2- Do you have the utility to read the tape?
>3- Do you have a compatible OS on which the utility can run and to which
>you can plug the device? (How many systems still have HP-IB or the
>connection that was used on the Series III and prior?)
>4- Do you have the application running on the OS which uses the files you
>are restoring?  Or can the application run on the OS onto which you are
>restoring?
>5- Does the application depend on hardware that is no longer available or
>is incompatible with the machine you now have? (How many HP 3000 still have
>card readers?)

Um, Gee, wasn't that the HP 2893A?  I think it was a Data Products 600 CPM
reader with an HP nameplate attached, wasn't it?

And what about all those paper tapes?

John

>Kind regards,
>
>Denys. . .
>
>Denys Beauchemin
>HICOMP
>(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
>denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:   Gavin Scott [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent:   Tuesday, 11 May, 1999 1:41 PM
>To:     [log in to unmask]
>Subject:        10,000 tapes in a shoebox (Was: 7980S replacement?)
>
>Fred asks:
>> Anybody knows the new 6250 bpi 1/2 Inch Tape drive solution?
>
>Oops. :-)
>
>> My HP 3000 Configuration Guide still shows the 7980S, but it is not on
>our
>> price list and HP support states it is obsolete with an EOS date of April
>> 2003.
>
>Well, I suspect (but have no specific knowledge) that HP just obsoleted the
>7980S at the natural point in that device's life cycle without noticing
>that it may be the last supported device for the HP3000 capable of reading
>an entire class of magnetic media.
>
>Those who have reel tapes which they must keep for archival purposes beyond
>2003, and who still expect to have 3000s then, might want to express this
>need to HP before it's too late.
>
>This is a classic recurring problem throughout the history of computing,
>especially in business data processing where electronic records must often
>be kept for seven years or more (up to something like 20 years in some
>heavily regulated businesses I understand).  It's not hard to keep the
>media around, but keeping a working tape drive along with a computer that
>supports it is quite often nearly impossible or at least outrageously
>expensive.
>
>The obvious solution is to migrate your long term storage media forward
>from something like 9-track reel-to-reel tape that's becoming obsolete
>to something currently supported like DAT or especially DLT.
>
>DLT appears to be a really good long term storage format.  A single
>DLT IV tape in a DLT 7000 drive will hold up to 70GB (assuming 2:1
>compression.  That's equal to around 1000 reel-to-reel tapes! (1200
>foot, 6250 BPI, uncompressed = ~70MB/tape I think).  A DLT tape is
>good for 30 years storage (or more if you actually keep them in a
>controlled environment).
>
>Now, what if you could actually put those 1000 reel tapes onto a single
>DLT tape?
>
><plug alert>
>
>One of the products that we sell here at Allegro is XOVER (pronounced
>"crossover") which is an any media to any media MPE tape copier.  It
>is able to make N reel store sets into M reel store sets, that is if
>you have a 10 reel mag tape store set, you can copy it to a single DDS
>tape rather than 10 DDS tapes (or vice versa).  Lots of people already
>use this tool for migrating their archival storage from yesterday's
>tape formats to today's (which are hopefully tomorrow's) new media.
>
>In a forthcoming version of XOVER, we'll be supporting archiving of
>multiple tape volume *sets* onto a single new tape set.
>
>This means that you can take 1000 reels or so of 9-track tape out of
>your tape library and actually put them onto a *single* DLT 7000 tape!
>
>You can then make multiple copies of that one DLT and stick them away
>for redundant long term storage.  Imagine being able to put a 10,000
>tape library into a single small safe-deposit box at your bank, rather
>than keeping them on site or paying an expensive records retention
>service to protect them year after year.
>
>You can even restore any file(s) from any tape-set on the DLT *without*
>having to first extract the tape-set on to separate physical tapes.
>
>So, if you've got a big library of archival tapes, and you'd like to
>replace them with a shoebox full of DLTs, give us a call.
>
></plug>
>
>G.


--------------------------------------------------------------
John Korb                            email: [log in to unmask]
Innovative Software Solutions, Inc.

The thoughts, comments, and opinions expressed herein are mine
and do not reflect those of my employer(s), or anyone else.