Interesting.

Post #21,078 by static 12/11/01 5:58:23 PM Reply	Interesting. There's [link\|http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/11/2030211&mode=thread\|a story on SlashDot] about backup up a moderate amount of data. A few posters brought up the ADR technology that [link\|http://www.onstream.com/\|OnStream] is selling. A few less mentioned [link\|http://www.ecrix.com/\|Ecrix]. Now I've been ~~lusting~~ saving for an Ecrix drive for some months, but I was wondering if (anyone here thinks) the ADR stuff was better tech. I hadn't heard of it before. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #21,098 by tonytib 12/11/01 8:58:01 PM Reply	My impression is avoid OnStream, but others may know more Barry R really liked Ecrix, although he's moved on the bigger things (AIT IIRC). And, I recall hearing bad things about OnStream, but don't remember the details. Tony
Post #21,125 by static 12/12/01 12:38:43 AM Reply	AIT is really expensive. Or it was last time I looked. I might look again. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #21,604 by broomberg 12/15/01 7:43:38 PM Reply	OT: No good info, only responding > Barry R really liked Ecrix, although > he's moved on the bigger things (AIT IIRC). Acck, my ears are burning. Here's my progression: QIC - not consumer, no matter what anyone says, just old. In those days, the only competition other than mainframe 9 track and 3480 was Exabyte, which had a horrible history. DAT - 2GB. When I had 3x600MB o'disk it was fine. Original DLT in a 7 slot autochanger. Fast if you could feed it, HORRIBLE if you could not. DAT 4/8 GB (I think). Just because I needed to read one. Original Exabyte, to read from an RS6000. DUAL AIT in specialized enclosure with compression card. Cost me $22K for 2, ie: 4 drives. Was to backup 300GB. Too pricey, but big and fast. Then I did a little dance with ECRIXs. Bought about a dozen of them. Sprinkled them like fairy dust. Too slow, though, for any backup > 100GB, and when I do one'off backups by hand, for panic, way too slow. 3-6MB per second. Restore time was pretty bad too. Very cheap for the capacity, though. Now I'm in love with Exabyte Mammoth M2 in EZ17 robotic enclosure, 7 tapes. $6K for the box. Backup runs between 10 - 25MB per second, depending on compressability. Each tape holds about 70GB already compressed data, 100-200GB raw data. Restore runs at about 15-30MB per second and that is what REALLY counts when you are sweating. I currently have 8 of them.
Post #21,605 by tonytib 12/15/01 9:42:23 PM Reply	BTW, did you see that Exabyte bought Ecrix? At work, we're using DAT-3, but are getting close to its limits. So I did some quick research to see what the options cost, and found out the Exabyte had done some buying. $6K is too much for us; realistic max cost will be $2K (and $1.5K is better). I didn't find any loaders in that price range, but did find DDS-4, Exabyte Ecrix, AIT, and DLT drives. However, any new purchase is probably six months away. Tony
Post #21,610 by Andrew Grygus 12/15/01 11:11:16 PM Reply	So, the question now is: Did they buy it to kill it - or did they buy it to sell the product. More often than not, purchases by an "established name" are to kill a threatening technology. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #21,613 by tonytib 12/15/01 11:48:04 PM Reply	Well, Exabyte has already added Ecrix products to their site so it looks like they will be keeping the produts; I hope they don't kill them. If the Ecrix's slower speed isn't a problem, they definitely have a great price (well under $1,000) for the storage (33G uncompressed), plus I like the fact that it's not a helican scan tape (like VHS or DDS). To me it appears that the Ecrix products fill a different niche than Exabytes. Companies buying other companies just to kill them (e.g. Mathworks recently did this) or suck the customer base dry (e.g. CA) really ticks me off. /end of sermon Tony
Post #21,117 by Andrew Grygus 12/11/01 11:07:44 PM Reply	OnStream has real problems. One is whether the company is still alive, having filed bankruptcy earlier this year, and how long they may be alive if they still are. The other problem is even more serious. OnStream drives are not standard SCSI devices. They require proprietary drivers, which may work on some versions of some operating systems. The company was founded by the same crew that produced the least reliable tape drives seen in recent times, Colorado. I suspect they could still have the same attitude on quality. I wouldn't touch 'em with a barge pole. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #21,126 by static 12/12/01 12:39:21 AM Reply	Thanks. They do sound like something to steer clear of. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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