I have several 3570 devices with the oldest one in use since early 97 and up to
now, no device or even media problems.
(well except for that one new Magstar cartridge that was shipped to me with NO
tape in it!...ooops)
After using 8mm for some time, this is a big blessing for me (us).
The improvement in data transfer rate has become most visible in the handling
of large files (particularlydatabase support).
We backup clients of NT (including Lotus Notes on NT ..full database backups),
Netware and AIX.