Mitch Collinsworth <mitch AT ccmr.cornell DOT edu> writes:
> Maybe not 10, but when I used DDS2 I eventually adopted a policy of
> throwing them away after 20 uses, if they even made it that far.
> DDS1 was even worse.  I also adopted a policy of not buying any more
> DDS drives, so despite the newer DDS models supposedly doing much
> better, I've never witnessed it.

Ditto, but that was all a long time ago (back when the DDS1 drives
were a step up in reliability from the Exabytes we had been using).

> The best tape longevity I've personally experienced was with DLT4000,
> which was the only DLT model I've personally used.  My current AIT2's
> can't compete with the DLT.  Will soon be making the long-awaited
> switch to AIT3.  Hopefully that will do better than AIT2.

Our experience so far is that AIT3 is better than AIT2, but still not
in the same class as DLT4000 or 7000--but some of our problems with
AIT3 have certainly been the usual arrows in the back early adopters
tend to collect.  Sony has been very responsive addressing the issues
we've encountered, so your experience may be better.

-dan