[Info-vax] A VS DLT rant

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

Rich Jordan <jordan at ccs4vms.com> wrote:
> I despise VS series DLT drives.

> A couple years ago we purchased two new in box but old stock VS80s to
> upgrade both VMScluster and wintel backup (from DAT).  All new tapes
> (since the pile of DLT8000 tapes we had would require degaussing to
> work on these drives).

(snip of long story)

Personally, I like Ultrium much better than DLT.  For one, the tapes
are more affordable.  Also, I believe that the drives are more
reliable, though I don't have many data points.

One difference, though.  LTO tapes have an embedded servo so you
can't bulk erase (degauss) the tapes.

-- glen