Travan tape drive capacity question

**Lectraplayer** · 02-11-2006, 02:53 PM

I have a 4GB Travan tape drive, and the smallest tape cartridge I'm finding is 8GB, with plenty of 20-40GB tapes also available. Would these higher-capacity tapes work with a lower-capacity tape drive, allbeit at the drive's lower capacity (4GB)? ...or would the tape drive not see anything on the tape and end up blowing by the Beginning Of Tape bit and thus pulling the tape off its flanges? (obviously bad).

jimscreechy · 02-13-2006, 07:42 AM

Good question. the 4g tapes are quite old now so they are much harder to come by, though i bet someone like me has an attic full of them somewhere you could have for next to nothing.

It tends to work such that if you have an old drive you can't actually insert the new tapes, but the new drives can usually accept and read older low capacity tapes but sometimes not write them... even at the old/low capacity.

This isn't hard and fast unfortunately. My dds3 drive accepts old dds2 tapes but will not read or write them, and simply comes up with media error. Sometimes there are jumpers to set these various preferences.

Alas I suppose my answer is I dont' know. But I do know it is not difficult to find this information with a bit of googling. You haven't said who the manufacturer of your drive is. Find out and then google the part/product number. If you know who the is the manufacturer, look on their website. YOu will probably find a whole document of the can's and can'ts of your drive.

AMendment.
sorry, you did say Travan, right in the head of your text (forgive my eyesight)
I think this is an HP job and you will almost certainly find this info on the HP.com site.

02-11-2006, 02:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
Lectraplayer TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Birmingham, AL Posts: 527 OS: Win-XP, Debian/Sarge, and SuSI 9.1	Travan tape drive capacity question I have a 4GB Travan tape drive, and the smallest tape cartridge I'm finding is 8GB, with plenty of 20-40GB tapes also available. Would these higher-capacity tapes work with a lower-capacity tape drive, allbeit at the drive's lower capacity (4GB)? ...or would the tape drive not see anything on the tape and end up blowing by the Beginning Of Tape bit and thus pulling the tape off its flanges? (obviously bad). __________________ Finally, killed the Window! Microsoft free, baby!!

02-13-2006, 07:42 AM	#2 (permalink)
jimscreechy Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: UK Posts: 372 OS: xp	Good question. the 4g tapes are quite old now so they are much harder to come by, though i bet someone like me has an attic full of them somewhere you could have for next to nothing. It tends to work such that if you have an old drive you can't actually insert the new tapes, but the new drives can usually accept and read older low capacity tapes but sometimes not write them... even at the old/low capacity. This isn't hard and fast unfortunately. My dds3 drive accepts old dds2 tapes but will not read or write them, and simply comes up with media error. Sometimes there are jumpers to set these various preferences. Alas I suppose my answer is I dont' know. But I do know it is not difficult to find this information with a bit of googling. You haven't said who the manufacturer of your drive is. Find out and then google the part/product number. If you know who the is the manufacturer, look on their website. YOu will probably find a whole document of the can's and can'ts of your drive. AMendment. sorry, you did say Travan, right in the head of your text (forgive my eyesight) I think this is an HP job and you will almost certainly find this info on the HP.com site. __________________ []Intel Q6600 []2GB Samsung DDR3[]EVGA 790i Motherboard[]2 x Asus Geforce 8800GTX, Thermaltake Duorb VGA coolers[]OCZ 850 GameXtreme[]Adaptec 3805 Raid adaptor A Custom made car is always better than its production alternative. Last edited by jimscreechy; 02-13-2006 at 07:44 AM.