[lug] Tape Drives on Linux

[Nate Duehr]

Why non-SCSI?

I have both DDS-3 drives (HP, and some no-name) and an Ecrix VXA-1
external SCSI that have ALWAYS worked... no screwing around... on
everyone's stock kernels.

Plug them in, turn them on, run whatever backup types I want.  Never so
much as a single complaint from any kernel.

You don't need high-end expensive SCSI adapter cards for tapes, they
don't need it.  Grab a few cheap supported SCSI cards and be done with
it.

I'm partial to Adaptec cards, but they tend to be a little more pricey. 
I have a Tekram card that wouldn't work properly under 2.2 kernels, but
is very happily supported on the stock RedHat 2.4 kernels also.  It was
$39 at Micro Center if I remember correctly.

I saw HP DDS-3 drives in unknown but supposedly working condition on
Ebay today for $40.  I don't think I'd trust a production environment to
an Ebay tape drive, but new ones are quite reasonable if you consider
the amount of your time and down-time data loss will cost.  

(I'm starting to become a "True Believer(TM)" in good backups... now if
I just had more time to get all the machines everywhere that I use set
up the way I want them!  GRIN)

Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com

On Wed, 2001-11-07 at 14:30, Greg Horne wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
>     I've been having a hell of a time getting Iomega Ditto 2GB, and
> Easy 800 drives working with linux.  I've spent a while trying to
> get them to work.
>     There is not very good documentation on getting
> them working, and success stories are low compared to complaints.
> I'm don't want to use iomega drives anymore.  Does anybody have
> suggestions as to which tape drives work the best under Red Hat Linux?
> 
> I Need
> -------
> 1. External (Unless there is a really good internal drive, but I have
>    about 8 servers that will need to be using backup, so...)
> 2. Non-SCSI
> 3. At least 2GB storage capacity on the tapes
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Thanks,
> Greg Horne
> 
> 
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