[PLUG] Stumped by tape driver errors...

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003, Michael C. Robinson wrote:

> Well, it looks like a new DI30 drive is $250 but the cleaning cartridges
> are hard to get and the onstream site, http://www.onstream.com, seems to
> be gone.  I think I was looking at Tandberg TR-4, what do the SLR drives
> cost?  I have five brand new tapes, maybe I can sell everything.

Michael,

  Only two comments I can offer. The first, as you have learned, is that the
cost is more than what you plunk down initially. The second is to check both
the Tandberg USA Web site for specials and pricewatch.com to see what they
have. I bought my SLR-60 at half-price under one of their unadvertised
"evaluation programs". Call or e-mail them to see if they'll cut a deal with
you.

  If I recall correctly, I paid about $700 for my drive several years ago.
Yes, it's a lot of money, but I've paid it no attention since then (other
than the three times it asked to be cleaned and I ran the cartridge through
it). So, amortizing the drive cost and the approximately $250 for three
tapes and a cleaning cartridge over 4 years, that's a reasonable price for
me. I spend no time away from work getting it working properly, the backups
are made from cron jobs and all I do is replace the daily cartridge with the
appropriate weekly one on Friday afternoon and reverse the procedure on
Monday. While I cannot put a dollar value on the time I have not spent
futzing with a tape backup system, I know that the cost has been acceptably
low.

HTH,

Rich

Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President

                       Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
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