Mag Tapes was RE: Got Videotrax card working

[Paul Koning]

>>>>> "Joe" == Joe R <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> writes:

 Joe> At 11:14 PM 3/12/05 -0500, James Fogg wrote:
 >>  Over the years I've learned to never trust tape of any kind.

 Joe> That's been my experience. I've never been able to get a tape
 Joe> backup that worked. That includes brand new ones, DATs and
 Joe> everything else. I know tapes have been a mainstay in the
 Joe> computer field but I've had nothing but trouble with them.

My view is that there are PC class tapes and real tapes.  Real tapes
include classic half inch reel, DLT, and presumably IBM' cartridges (I
haven't used those).  The most obvious nasty example of PC class tapes
are QIC cartridges.  DAT is similar -- those are miniature video
tapes, forced into pretending to be data tapes.

It doesn't help when trade press reviewers don't take data integrity
seriously.  Some years ago there was a review article about backup
software.  The reviewers did some restore testing.  Good of them to do
that.  Some of the programs tested didn't reliably restore data, so
they were docked 30 points or so.

That's amazing.  The only correct answer would be to unconditionally
flunk such programs, because the value of a backup program that can't
restore reliably is obviously zero, not any higher value...

	paul