OT: DAT drives

[Torgo Jr]

Ben Pfaff wrote:
> 
> Mark Szidik - Michigan Library Consortium <szidikm@mlc.lib.mi.us> writes:
> 
> > I am just a little curious as to why my DAT drive (using dump) writes
> > about 1 MB/s using a DDS1 tape (90Meter) and writes to tape at 4.4MB/s
> > using a DDS3 tape?
> 
> I want to know, too.  Mine only writes 1.2MB/s to DDS-3 tape (and
> 400kB/s to DDS-[12] tape)!  But, seriously, that's normal.  Why
> it happens, I'm don't know.  Here's a wild guess: the speed of
> tape motion past the head is fixed, but bits are stored more
> densely on DDS-3 tape.

Do DDS-1/2 have different notches on the tape case?  Perhaps 
the drive knows it's an older type, and the motor slows down 
for those (?????).  I know there is a special notch (or maybe 
lack of) for cleaning tapes, it just runs it and ejects it 
automatically without software intervention.

-- 
Alan Garrison _ agarris@voyager.net
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid."  -- Bishop (Aliens)