8mm data cartridges

[Jules Richardson]

Al Kossow wrote:
>  > I always figure there's a lot less to go wrong in a DLT cartridge 
> than there
>  > is with a hard disk
> 
> The flaw in this argument is the time it takes to make another copy, 
> which needs to be done at some point to migrate to newer media.

I'm not sure that it matters though, not while the hardware to read whatever 
media is being used still survives in healthy numbers. With any type of media 
there will come a point where for all intents and purposes it's obsolete, but 
migration should happen before that point's reached.

DLT is pretty quick in my experience for the sorts of data sizes typically 
found on home machines. Different matter entirely (generally) in the corporate 
world, of course.

> You will only know the DLT has failed when you try to read it again.

Surely that's true of any backup media? (Well, the exception being backup 
media where you *know* it's broken just by looking at it!).