🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <oka6lrtei.fsf@vapor.franz.com>,
Kevin Layer <layer@Franz.COM> wrote:
>Does someone out there know why DAT tapes, mostly the 120m variety,
>are in short supply recently (last few months)?  This, of course, has
>caused the price to soar to $18/tape (I rememeber when I bought Sony
>120m DAT tapes for around $12/tape), if you can find a supplier that
>has them in stock.

Where on earth did you EVER see Sony 120m tapes for $12 each?
(What kind of quantity are you talking about?)  I've never seen
them for less than $18-20.

>Lastly, I heard rumors of massive quality problems with various
>brands, and I experienced problems with TDK 90m tapes (a whole batch
>was bad).  I also heard a rumor that DDS-3 was being held up because
>of production problems of the media not the drive.

TDK DAT tapes have never had such a good reputation from what I can tell.
Sony and Maxell have always come out on top.  I've been using surplus
HP tapes (made by Maxell) and have had no problems with them.

I've heard that both DDS-3 and Exabyte Mammoth will use
evaporated-metal media.  Given the problems that this technology has
in 8mm video, I've been skeptical of it all along.  I've heard they
are also trying to make superfine metal-particle tape for DDS-3, but
that really seems to be pushing the limits of MP.  The bit density of
DDS-2 is already higher than any other kind of tape and I'm fearful of
DDS-3 until I see it working reliably.  I think once you get to
that level of tape capacity, the best approach is to switch to DLT.