Re: [PARPORT] HP Colorado 14Gb (or 8Gb) compatibility?


grant@torque.net
Wed, 21 Jul 1999 07:22:31 -0400 (EDT)


> I've seen notes about the Colorado 5Gb and 8Gb drives
> in this mailing list's archive, but nothing about the 14Gb
> (it must be relatively new?).

I believe it is. And, I have no data about it. Beware, it may
be another in the Aiwa/Onstream/Sony family that is NOT a standard
ATAPI tape drive. Do the specs mention "TRAVAN" ? If so, it's probably
ok ...

> Would anyone be able to help me by answering any of the
> following questions -
>
> o does anyone have a Colorado 14Gb external tape drive
> working (or not working) under Linux?

I have no information on this, and apparently nobody has stepped up to
answer it.

> o at this point I gather than only the 'rewind' mt function
> works for parallel-port tape drives? Is there any way
> one can 'append' backup volumes to a HP Colorado tape?
> (i.e. 'mt eod' to the last filemark, etc). Or is it the
> case at the moment that tapes can be used only for one
> volume at any time?

Of course you can write multiple files to the tape. That's what the
'n' devices are for. It's just the "exotic" mtops that haven't
been implemented. And, this is a perfect project for somebody who wants
to pick it up :-)
 
> o I've seen mention of 'Travan' in association with the HP
> Colorado drives, or the drives written as 'HP T8000'
> (for the 8Gb drive). What is this 'Travan', please? I'm
> worried I might buy the wrong drive!

Travan is an industry standard for higher density hard formatted
QIC tapes.

> Advice on the above points or comments in general on the HP
> Colorado lines of parallel-port tape drives would be much
> appreciated.

With a well-tuned configuration, you'll get about 500KB/s throughput
to a parallel port tape drive with the pt driver. If that's not good
enough, spend more money on a SCSI solution.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grant R. Guenther grant@torque.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- To unsubscribe, send mail to: linux-parport-request@torque.net --
-- with the single word "unsubscribe" in the body of the message. --



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed 21 Jul 1999 - 07:28:16 EDT