Add 3rd party scsi tapes

[John P. Eisenmenger]

>From article <46268 at sequent.UUCP>, by glass at sequent.UUCP (David N. Glass):
> I have seen the conversation about adding 3rd party disks and it
> brings up a question.  Is there any problem I should know about
> when trying to add a 3rd party scsi tape to the system?  Will
> the existing controller handle them?  Any help would be appreciated.

WATCH OUT!!  Make sure that any 3rd party tape you buy will work on an
RS6000!  As it turns out, IBM uses their own firmware in their 8mm drive
so a "standard" 8mm drive will *not* work.  Whether this will be fixed
in later revisions of AIX (it supposedly worked in earlier revisions),
I don't know.

The moral of this story is that you can't expect your Sun's SCSI 8mm
drive to work from an RS6000.

[ BTW - this is not what IBM told me.  This is from the vendor and may or
  may not be a correct analysis.  All I care about is my refund... ]

There are at least two vendors that ship RS6000 compatible drives: IBM
and Dickens Data Systems.  Contemporary Cybernetics Group started shipments
of their RS6000 drive this week.  At ~$3850 it will be the cheapest of
the three, provided it works (I'm waiting for confirmation from a *user*
before sending in a PO.

> 
> -- Dave
> 
> ------------------
> David N. Glass
> Performance Computing Inc.              software engineering consultants
> PO Box 230995                           ...!sequent!glass
> Portland, OR 97223                      (503) 624-8245

If someone out there has gotten a "regular" SCSI tape drive to work, please
let the world know...

-John Eisenmenger			jpe at egr.duke.edu
 Duke University			jpe at cs.duke.edu
 Dept. of Electrical Engineering
 Durham, NC 27706