8mm data cartridges

[Jules Richardson]

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> All of the 8mm gear that I saw was SCSI.

That's good to hear :)

  > Even in 1991, it was getting to be obvious that the era of tape
> backup was doomed, with hard disk storage capacities growing like 
> Topsy and tape lagging more an more--although I still use DLT 
> occasionally.

I tend to put stuff on DLT still - unless it's something really large (like a 
raw archive of some vintage system's hard disk), in which case it gets 
mirrored to a second hard drive.

I always figure there's a lot less to go wrong in a DLT cartridge than there 
is with a hard disk - but I'm not sure how it all works out in the end given 
that the physical data surfaces in a hard disk are probably more robust. Maybe 
the clever thing to do would be to backup twice to two *identical* hard 
drives, in the hope that if either the logic board or the "mechanical" side 
went wrong there'd be enough good bits to make up a working unit from which to 
restore.

(Note that I'm talking "home backup" here rather than corporate... I think 
generally what happens though is that 99.9% of the world's home users don't 
actually bother backing anything up at all)