DDS3 and DDS4 tapes in a DDS2 tape drive??

[Kurt]

Are DDS3 and DDS4 tapes compatible in a DDS2 extertal Sun tape drive? I
have one and it just spits
out the DDS3 and DDS4 tapes 30 seconds after I insert them.

Thanks for your help!!

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Kurt wrote:

>
> Are DDS3 and DDS4 tapes compatible in a DDS2 extertal Sun tape drive? I
> have one and it just spits
> out the DDS3 and DDS4 tapes 30 seconds after I insert them.
>
> Thanks for your help!!

As someone has said, the answer is no. If you want to swap some of
your DDS-4 tape for some of my DDS-2 ones, I'd be quite happy!

I'll elaborate a bit. Essentially a tape drive can read/write lower
capacity tapes, but not higher capacity ones. A DDS-4 tape drive can
and read and write DDS-4, DDS-3 and DDS-2 tapes. A DDS-3 can read and
write DDS-2 and DDS-3 tapes. A DDS-2 tape drive can read and write
DDS-2 tapes.

Note I've not mentioned DDS-1 tapes above. I don't think the latest
DDS-4 tape drives can write to the very old DDS-1 tapes and possibly
not even read from them. I assume DDS-2 drives would have no such
problem. I'm not entirely sure on the DDS-1 status, as its so old I've
never even bothered considering it.

It is recommended that you only use the tapes of the drives capacity.
i.e. while a DDS-4 drive will read/write DDS-3 and DDS-2 tapes, its
not recommended you do this on a regular basis.

There's a document discussing this in more detail on HP's web site,
and probably Seagate's too.

--
Dr. David Kirkby,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Medical Physics,
University College London,
11-20 Capper St, London, WC1E 6JA.
Tel: 020 7679 6408 Fax: 020 7679 6269
Internal telephone: ext 46408
e-mail [email]davek@medphys.ucl.ac.uk[/email]

[Andrew Gabriel]

In article <3F27BE4F.C5A32E04@ntlworld.com>,
"Dr. David Kirkby" <drkirkby@ntlworld.com> writes:

>
> Note I've not mentioned DDS-1 tapes above. I don't think the latest
> DDS-4 tape drives can write to the very old DDS-1 tapes and possibly
> not even read from them. I assume DDS-2 drives would have no such
> problem. I'm not entirely sure on the DDS-1 status, as its so old I've
> never even bothered considering it.

DDS-4 drive can't write DDS-1 tapes.
DDS-4 can read 90m DDS-1 tapes, but not 60m DDS-1 tapes.
At least, this was true for HP's drives. Other makes may be different.
(Of course, DDS-1 tapes were just called DDS at the time.)

--
Andrew Gabriel

[Andy Lennard]

In message <bg8945$ht3$1@zcars0v6.ca.nortel.com>, Kurt
<bunnyman2000@imagin.net> writes

>Are DDS3 and DDS4 tapes compatible in a DDS2 extertal Sun tape drive? I
>have one and it just spits
>out the DDS3 and DDS4 tapes 30 seconds after I insert them.
>
>Thanks for your help!!
>
>

Well, you're almost lucky that it does spit them out!

I had an 'interesting' problem once when a customer wrote on a DDS3 tape
in a DDS2 drive. I couldn't get it to read in my DDS3 drive until I had
covered over the relevant identification holes on the cartridge to make
my drive believe that it was a DDS2 cartridge!
--
Andrew Lennard [email]andy@kontron.demon.co.uk[/email]

[Unregistered]

Are DDS3 and DDS4 tapes compatible in a DDS2 extertal Sun tape drive? I
have one and it just spits
out the DDS3 and DDS4 tapes 30 seconds after I insert them.

Thanks for your help!!

The DDS Generation line is only backwards compatible. Meaning if you had a DDS-2 tape drive, it could write and read to DDS-2 and DDS-1, but not DDS-3 or greater (unless of course you had a DDS-3 or better tape drive)