On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 18:48 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> Is DLT a sensible choice at this day and age? Any caveats with above
> drives, if any? Sorry for the dumb questions, but I have only very
> limited experience with tape backups.

I'm not real experienced either. but I just went from DDS4 to DLT (VS160
from Quantum), and I like it a whole lot. The drive is expensive and the
tapes cost a fortune, but I had the same complaint about DDS longevity
you do, and from my research, I'm expecting DLT to be a significant
improvement. 

The VS160 is also a whole lot faster. On my system, IDE disks (DMA,
idebus=66) couldn't stream it -- SCSI and SATA can.

One note: If you go with DLT anything like mine, be *sure* to keep a
decent airflow on it or it will get awfully hot.

-- 
Glenn English
ghe AT slsware DOT com