Need advice on streamer tapes

[Michael Gengenbach]

we want to switch the backup of our Suns to the new streamer tapes, 
which handle up to 2 GB of data. We have offers from
   GIGATAPE (with DAT-tape)
   EXABYTE (with 8mm video-tape)
As we do not know much about this technology, we have a couple of questions:

   - Is the helical-scan-technology reliable?
   - Does the driver support standard UNIX character-devices?
   - Can you backup and restore single files or only complete disks?
   - Which device can you recommend?
   - How reliable is the tape media (it is pretty small :-)
   - Which error correction (ECC or FEC) is better?

Please answer by mail and we will summarize.

Thank you in advance.

   Michael

Michael Gengenbach   \/\/\/\/\/ gengenbach at unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de
AI Research Center    \/\/\/\/  gengenbach%unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de at unido.BITNET
University of Passau  /\/\/\/\  gengenbach%unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de at relay.CS.NET
West Germany         /\/\/\/\/\ Phone: +49 851/509-533