VXA tape drives design defect from Ecrix/Exabyte

From: Arthur Begun (beguna_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 01/26/04 

Date: 26 Jan 2004 07:26:08 -0800

For those of you thinking of buying one of these VXA -1 tape drives
because you've seen the ads with the backup tape sitting in the cup of
coffee and the claim that the data is still there.....

the drives apparently have a fatal flaw that have been known since
2001 according to a post I found by using google.

If your drive locks up as it is writing the header and you cannot get
the computer to respond and do a hard reboot, you can kiss everything
on the tape goodbye because the next time you read the tape it will
think there is zero on it. After it happened to me, I did a google
search and found a post from a guy who got screwed in 2001. Called
Exabyte and they could do nothing but offer me the addresses of some
recovery firms like Ontrack.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Escaping Data Rot
    ... I can backup my entire server on a single tape in less than an hour. ... The tape goes in my briefcase and travels to the office with me so there's always an off-site copy. ... And all the panoply of disk tools can be ... Some types of tape drives do read-after-write to check for bit errors, but off the top of my head I cannot state whether or not LTO drives do this. ...
    (comp.sys.apple2)
  • Re: VmWare?
    ... Try the backup method of Champions: Digital Linear Tape. ... Not sure how much data you need to have on-line at a time, but 70GB DLT IV drives are a $30.00 item on eBay with tapes a dime-a-dozen. ... Reminds me of the old "Stringy Floppy" drives from Exatron. ...
    (comp.os.cpm)
  • Re: despair
    ... So why don't you ask why the ALLOCATE command only gives a W when it ... better situation than if the same tape were in the drive all the time. ... The tape drives are in the data center which is locked. ... You're clearly not reading my posts very carefully and now ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: External RAMdisk
    ... technology has a defined wearout. ... I avoided Zip, Jaz, Syquest and other removeable hard drives. ... I've got to wonder if there's a "universal tape drive" ... for burned CD's vs RW CD's vs masked CDs and DVDs? ...
    (comp.os.cpm)
  • RE: Backup to USB Drives and 3rd Party Software
    ... last I checked 2.5” drives are ... I agree, always get the extended warranty with Backup Exec, if nothing else ... I disagree with your statemet "As we all know tape drives for small ... USB drives might cost less upfront, but I dont have problems with the drive ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)