Hello, Chris.

At  06:30 AM 8/22/00, Chris Schofield wrote:
>We are currently replacing some tape drives on our customers HP3000's.
>Is it possible to use external SCSI tape drives that are not HP?
>  If so, has anybody any suggestions as to which to use ?
>Are there any issues when installing non-HP DAT drives ?
>The current DAT drives are C1503B or C1521B (We think)
>The HP3000's are all running 5.5 or higher.

My own personal opinion:  DLT.

DLT4000 and DLT7000 (perhaps in autoloader or even library configurations)
are my preferred tape drives of choice for MPE these days.  I prefer the
Quantum labeled DLT mechanisms simply because they are the manufacturer for
all DLT drives these days, though it may be worth whatever (if any)
additional cost there is to get the HP labeled drives for an MPE system.

HP's DLT libraries looked like pretty good implementations to me (but it's
been a couple of years and I wasn't working directly with them at the time)
but I was *very* impressed with the DLT libraries from Overland Data both
in scalability and in quality of hardware design.  When I was testing with
the entry-level Overland Data DLT library, I was reminded of the almost
over-engineered implementations that I used to see in HP hardware.  The
library looked and felt solid and robust in the internal mechanisms.

In the context of putting my personal money where my mouth is, last year
when the DDS-2 drive I used to backup my home network died I decided to
spend a few hundred more and move to DLT4000 even in this environment.  I
used to be a big fan of DDS technology but my experiences have led me to
think that DLT is far superior.  Now if only DLTtape-IV cartridges were
less expensive.  ;)

P.S.  No <PLUG> needed as this is just personal advice and I don't have any
financial interest in the vendors or products mentioned, except as just
another customer.

--
Jeff Woods
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