🚀 go-pugleaf

> My HP35480A DAT claims peak rates of from 366-732 KB/sec.
> I have been AVERAGING about 330 KB/sec. ( with compression off, using
> gnutar on an IBM RS/6000 ).

Although I hate to say it, the 35480 has a NATIVE data transfer rate of    
183Kbytes/second. Anything you get above that is due to data compression.
Data suggests technical UNIX  users get comprression ratios "around 2" 
which is what you're seeing. Commercial UNIX users (we're talking about 
the folks who buy massive disks and put data bases full of 000's on them)
can see ratios of 4 (and sometimes more!).
 
> [ However - I would *LIKE* to be able to go with QIC technology rather 
>   than helical scan ( 4mm DAT or 8mm ) _IF_ONLY_ QIC technology was today
>   where they claim they'll be in a couple years. I'm uneasy relying upon
>   all that ECC on top of an inherently unreliable recording technology. 
>   I'ld *rather* have the ECC on *top of* a reliable medium. ( But then
>   I'm a sort of belt-AND-suspenders kind of guy! :-) ] 

QIC technology and DAT technology have fought a battle over data integrity
claims for a long time. DAT has always been based on a high-bit-density +
high-ECC-percentage to achieve data integrity. QIC has slowly worked its 
way up from no ECC to "whatevers required for the current density". 
About 19% of the "bits" written by a 2.0Gbyte QIC drive are ECC.
About 33% of the "bits" written by a DDS DAT drive are ECC (this excludes
rewrites of data that read-after-write flagged as incorrect).

All I can say on this emotive issue is that (in my own biased opinion)
QIC has no edge over DAT in the integrity stakes and I'm forming opinions
that the reverse might be true.


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Kevin Jones.                       | Hewlett Packard Ltd,
                                   | Computer Peripherals Bristol,
kev%hpcpbla@hplb.hpl.hp.com        | Filton Road,
                                   | Stoke Gifford,
Tel: 011 44 272 228351             | Bristol.   BS12 6QZ.
                                   | ENGLAND.
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