[dba-Tech] Coming soon to a data-center near you

[Jim Lawrence]

Hi Gustav:

I must admit, like yourself, I have set up clients for years with reel-to-reel tapes and large and small tape format, especially for backups. I have been out of the market for a few years but it seems that most companies just use hard drives for their backups these days. Before a tape backup was so cheap, in comparison, to the cost of a large capacity hard drives...today, no so much.

I have had little experience with a professional tape drive breaking tapes...maybe one or two in twenty years. IMHO, the only thing that has kept tape drives relevant, is the excellent tape hardware.

Jim    

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gustav Brock" <gustav at cactus.dk>
To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 11:35:09 PM
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Coming soon to a data-center near you

Hi Jim

Bad comparison ...

CCs are quite reliable given you use good quality brands and proper equipment.

In my first company - back in the 70/80s, we first used the Sony Elcaset to master our fixed installations of multimedia shows for corporations because of the exact reasons mentioned here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcaset

Later, we turned to the Compact Cassette - again for the same reasons that the article describes - though not using one of the very expensive Nakamichi decks but a custom built deck for 19" rack mount we made from a heavy-duty OEM drive from Lenco. This was also an expensive solution, so we later turned to a deck from Technics which we modified with four-track playback head and remote control from our control unit.

As we needed a control track, we could only offer mono sound in the beginning. The Lenco drive, however, we implemented with a four-track head which allowed for stereo sound, a guard track to keep crosstalk to a minimum, and a control track for the AVL dissolve units that controlled the projectors. 

For recording we supplied the producers with a British Neal four-track recorder. The two-track version of this you may happen to see in British thrillers where the bad guys are questioned at the police station, as Neal for many years was a supplier to the British police of recording equipment for this purpose.

As I think about it, we never experienced a break-down because of the cassette tapes or drives. Actually, our installations were remarkable reliable. The only error we couldn't take care of was a projector bulb burning out during a show. Later, Kodak equipped their projectors with a spare bulb you could flip in service should the primary go black - but that required manual intervention and that was not the philosophy behind the installations; they were supposed to run unattended by a push of a single button.

I still have a Sony WM-D6C Professional Walkman for my Maxell cassettes. It has a mechanical failure now, but it has never malfunctioned with these cassettes.

/gustav


-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: dba-Tech [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] På vegne af Jim Lawrence
Sendt: 13. april 2015 01:06
Til: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Emne: Re: [dba-Tech] Coming soon to a data-center near you

Hi Arthur:

I do not know whether I would trust tape backups...I have to ask; "How many cassette tapes do you still have?"...they all broke didn't they?

Jim 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arthur Fuller" <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 10:47:10 AM
Subject: [dba-Tech] Coming soon to a data-center near you

IBM and Fujitsu have collaborated on an old/new backup and storage medium
-- gasp! -- tape drives. unlike their older versions, this new stuff will be able to store somewhere in the neighbourhood of 220 TBs. These new technologies (Fujitsu figured out the technique, IBM will supply the drive) can store 220TBs, with a retrieval time of about one minute. Click here <http://www.networkworld.com/article/2908654/data-center/ibm-fujifilm-show-tape-storage-still-has-a-long-future.html>

<snip> 

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