[MacDV] Re: SCSI cards for a G5 2x2?

[Zane H. Healy]

> You got me there -- I've *only* been doing it for 10 years.  Sheesh.  I
> agree with you about the 4mm formats, though -- UGH!

I've got two problems with 4mm tapes, one is that I've *never* been able to
find any solid information on how good of an archival medium they are.  The
other is the incompatibility between drive manufacturers and I'll admit I
don't know how much of a problem this currently is. 

The only tapes I trust are the original DECtapes (good luck finding a
working drive these days, let alone a tape, but if you find both, you'll be
able to read that tape), 9-Tracks and DLT tapes.  Both 9-Track tapes and
DLT's are supposed to be good for 10 years for archival purposes (vs. 2 for
8mm).  I've personally read a 20 year old 9-Track, and 15-17 year old
CompacTape I's (they're also known as TK50's and modern DLT's are based on
these) without any difficulty.  Though by the time they get to that age
you're really pushing it (I've had a few CompacTape I's in the 15-17 year
old range that have had problems).  The last CompacTape I tape I read was
for a customer a few months ago, and the data was from '87, I read it
without any problem (he's also got a stack of 9-tracks I need to get setup
to read).

We've got a bunch of 8mm and 4mm tapes from '92-96 that need transferred to 
SuperDLT, when we get a chance, we'll be shipping them off and having them 
done professionally, as I'm quite honestly scarred of them (even several
years ago I could never retrieve any data from the 4mm tapes).

At work we use 4mm and 8mm as boot tapes for our AIX systems, at home I've
used them as a cheap backup medium, and I use 4mm tapes sometimes to get data 
to and from my PDP-11/73.

			Zane