5 years warranty for seagate HDs

[xortam]

I used to have a little 5 slot HP DAT juke on my desk at work (SureStore I believe is the name). Still got a bunch of 2 GB DATs floating about the home office though I haven's used my SCSI DAT drive in years. What's the max capacity on 8mm now? I doubt they can handle today's capacities unless you're talking about a silo. HDDs still appear to be the only sensible storage solution at home these days.

[Jammrock]

Looks like quite a bit. Here's an HP tape backup drive that holds 400 GB per tape:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/ultrium460/index.html

Jammrock

[Wombat]

Actually, that IBM drive is a 1/2" drive.

Here's where 8mm is right now:

AIT-3, in a 3.5-inch form-factor, provides up to 100GB of native capacity (260GB with compression) and a 12MB/sec sustained native transfer rate (31MB/sec with compression)

AIT-4 is just around the corner, and will double capacity, and increase throughput. 8mm tapes run about $50, less in bulk.

[xortam]

Originally posted by Wombat
You quoted "AIT-3, in a 3.5-inch form-factor, provides up to 100GB of native capacity (260GB with compression) and a 12MB/sec sustained native transfer rate (31MB/sec with compression)"
... 8mm tapes run about $50, less in bulk.

... which is $0.50/GB, comparable to the price of higher performing random access HDDs, and that's not including the tape drive cost. I don't care for tape any more due to 1) its sequential nature, 2) tapes are too easily damaged, 3) tape drives requires too much maintenance, and 3) consumer tape systems are too slow. I've been using a DVDR vs. a VCR to record TV for over a year now. Tape is history here. I'm so over tape by now that I'm not even going to allow if physically in my HT room unless it's there for archiving onto other media.

[Wombat]

You're right, they might not be the right choice for you. But your knowledge of the technology needs quite a bit of refreshing.

The drives I've been working with have hardly needed any maintenance at all in our labs, and we abuse them worse than almost anybody. Except in a few extreme cases (like swinging them around the labs) the drives we use haven't needed anything more than a cleaning tape.

And the tapes themselves are quite impressive. Far more durable than any hard drive.

And DVD-R? Good luck. About 90% of those should survive 5 years if you're lucky.

[xortam]

Originally posted by Wombat
... But your knowledge of the technology needs quite a bit of refreshing. ...

I haven't bothered keeping up with the tech these last five years since I've "retired". I didn't work at the device level anyway so I didn't care about tracking device capabilities, especially at the non-consumer level.

... And DVD-R? Good luck. About 90% of those should survive 5 years if you're lucky.

There's been a bit of discussion about the expected lifetime of various DVD media but I haven't seen any authoritative reports. DVD-RAM is said to have a shorter lifetime than DVD-R. I've only burned one -R this last year to give to someone. In the past, I've mostly just captured to disk for timeshifting TV (80 GB HDD on the DVDR). I archived to -RAM to handle any overflow from the DVDRs HDD as well as what I wanted to keep. I know have my HTPC which also supports -RAM and has SW to import/export with the DVDR. The DVD-VR format of -RAM is the native encoding on DVDRs so I like to keep it in the original format and now archive it to my removable HDDs on the HTPC. The -VR format is converted to DVD-Video when the DVD-R is burnt and there is some minimal loss in the re-encoding. I can playback my videos on the HTPC or the DVDR directly off the -VR format as well as edit in this format. I only re-encode to DVD-Video on DVD-R or to MPG when I want to export it out of my system, which is rare. So ... net, net ... my videos are on HDD, not DVDs.

[xortam]

Picked up another sale HDD this morning. 120 GB 7200 RPM 8 MB cache ... $47 after rebate or about $0.40/GB.