Gavin added: The other side of this problem is that if you have a system
with only an original DDS-1 drive, you need to think about upgrading
because the world is now moving towards devices which cannot produce tapes
readable by those drives.

To which I add the next iteration of DDS is, wait for it, drum roll please.
. ., DDS-5, probably in the 2001-2002 timeframe.  This will introduce yet
another DDS tape, probably close to 200 meters.  It is going to have to be
extremely thin and the track pitch will probably be 33% smaller than DDS-4.
 I would not be at all surprised if that drive were unable to read DDS-1
AND DDS-2.


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, January 18, 2000 12:43 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: DDS-4 Information

Denys writes:
> The DDS-4 technology[snip]

> It will only be able to read, not write on DDS-1 90 meter tapes.
> DDS 60 meter tapes cannot be read from or written to by a DDS-4 drive.

Hence, you don't want to have a machine that *only* contains a DDS-4, since
that will lead to issues with receiving software updates and patches from
HP
and other software vendors, since many people (including HP to judge from a
sample of recent tapes laying around) still ship everything on 60m tapes.

The other side of this problem is that if you have a system with only an
original DDS-1 drive, you need to think about upgrading because the world
is
now moving towards devices which cannot produce tapes readable by those
drives.

G.