[geeks] Testing a Sun 8mm tape drive - advice?

[Doug McLaren]

On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 02:16:45PM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:

| As part of my "big rescue" I got a few 8mm tape drives in uni-pack
| cases which I would like to test. As I am without any 8mm data, I
| wonder if I can use 8mm tapes from Best Buy (intended for 8mm digital
| camera use), or does it need to be a "data" tape.

They will work, but I'm told that they can leave deposits on the head
or will wear the heads more, reducing tape drive life.

Of course, I don't know how much of that's FUD and how much is
reality.  Should be good enough for testing anyways.

| If I can confirm they work, I'm happy to get "data" tapes, but can I
| test with a "video" tape? Also, any advice on cleaning tapes? (What to
| use, where to get them, etc.)

The same places that sell data tapes will sell cleaning tapes.

Personally, it seems that most of the time when my 8mm drives died, it
was right after using a cleaning tape, so I got in the habit of just
not using them, ever, and my drives stopped dying, and yet I never had
any problems reading or writing data.

(Of course, now my backups are onto other hard drives, and for
archival I save to DVD-R -- 8mm media is too expensive.)
 
| Also, I could use some 68 pin SCSI cables to connect "wide"
| uni-packs to Ultra 2 bases - pointers for reasonable cables for home
| use (I don't want $50 cables to lash together two $20 machines ;^)

The local (Austin, TX) goodwill computer store usually has SCSI cables
galore ...

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us