8MM Tape drives

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Nico de Jong wrote:
> Subject: 8MM Tape drives
> 
> 
> I hit the local recycler today and purchased a few tapes drives. Snagged 
> a DDS3 external, DDS4 external, and a cool looking IBM drive that I was 
> hoping might have been AIX. Turns out its an 8MM Mammoth 20/40GB drive 
> (looks like ebay #290335147769). The drive had a couple AS/400 stickers 
> on it and appears to be HVD (with terminator attached on the back). Are 
> these drives pretty decent, reliable, and fast? I don't have any 
> experience with them and grabbed it because I like collecting any kind 
> of removable media drive I don't have. Turned it on (fan must be moving 
> quite a bit of air by the sound of it) and the LCD went through 
> diagnostics and then to a ready state with no tape so I assume its not 
> DOA so far. Just curious what you guys think before I go looking for 
> tapes and a cable to connect it to a HVD 68 pin card in my SUN U5. I 
> assume Solaris 8 might know what to do with this thing, or PC backup 
> software will work with it.

The Exabyte Mammoth is a decent drive.

Peace...  Sridhar