[Info-vax] USB or SCSI TAPE

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2014-09-05 10:52:26 +0000, David Turner said:

> I talked with my HP re and he suggested SCSi for the HP rx2800i2 backup 
> with VMS 8.4. USB is just if not faster is it not in this iteration on 
> the rx2800i2
> 
> Comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
> 
> Going to connect numerous tape drives here for DR customer, so would 
> love to know what's best. USBs sure are cheaper

If it's not listed in HP SPOCK nor in the VMS SPD or related materials, 
it's probably not supported.  Which means you get to call up HP and ask 
if it's supported, and if not decide whether you want to determine 
whether the configuration even works, and works reliably.

Per 
<http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF%2Easpx%2F4AA4%2D7823ENW%2Epdf>, 
"USB is not officially supported by HP", which is ever slightly odd, as 
there are embedded USB optical devices on a few of the Integrity 
servers.  (I distinctly remember having tussles with the USB devices on 
those servers, too.)

Per the OpenVMS V8.4 manual 
<http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/84final/6048/6048pro_085.html>, there's 
no tape device driver listed, either.  Which isn't a good sign.

AFAIK, these boxes are all USB 2.0 devices, too, so slow.  (USB 3.0 is 
far too recent for most of these old boxes. Forget about USB 3.1.)

So...  SCSI or FC, most likely, if you really need tape.




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