On Thu, 5 Mar 1998 16:47:20 -0700, John Clogg <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>I would have to agree with those who have begged to differ with my
>earlier post.  I made my comments before seeing postings about
>unreadable tapes, and was responding to the "wear and tear on the
>drives" issue.
>
>By the way, we installed DDS2 drives many moons ago, used 90-meter
>tapes for a while, then switched to 120-meter tapes.  A couple of the
>drives failed, were replaced, and have been working fine ever since.
>This reminds me of the caveat we used to receive on reel-to-reel drives
>to the effect that using 3600-foot reels should not be attempted unless
>we intended to use only 3600-foot reels on that drive.  Evidently the
>difference in the two types of media caused different wear patterns,
>different calibration, or something.
>

Now I *have* heard some chatter on comp.sys.hp.hpux by Bill Hassell (I
think) about what happens when you mix 90-m and 120-m tapes. It seems
the tape mechanism or electronics need time to "adapt" to a media type
when you've been using a different media type. However, increased
drive wear and data loss were not mentioned in relation to this
practice ... merely a less-than-optimal level of performance (speed
and compression) for a period of time measured in hours.

----
Mark Landin
UNIX Sys. Admin, T. D. Williamson, Inc. (Standard disclaimer applies)
[log in to unmask]
"Before anyone passes judgment ... remember, we *are* in
the Arctic" .. Fox Mulder (prior to a physical exam)