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- Newsgroups: comp.arch.storage
- Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!news.netmbx.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!math.fu-berlin.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!LRZnews!k2
- From: k2@bl.physik.tu-muenchen.de (Klaus Steinberger)
- Subject: Re: Need to use DAT as data drive.
- Message-ID: <k2.721559992@woodstock>
- Keywords: DAT
- Sender: news@news.lrz-muenchen.de (Mr. News)
- Organization: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum, Muenchen (Germany)
- References: <mabbot.11.721464405@stel.csir.co.za>
- Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 09:19:52 GMT
- Lines: 38
-
- mabbot@stel.csir.co.za (Mike Abbot) writes:
-
- >I would like to use a (WANG)DAT as a data storage device (as opposed to a
- >backup device) in a PC based system.
-
- >I have the device driver for the SCSI controller in the PC (Adaptec), and I
- >know that I can probably do what I need to do with the relevant SCSI
- >calls ... BUT I'm trying to avoid that !
- I would avoid that too. But did your driver software allow you
- open/close/read/write calls for the drive? This is the way you should work.
-
- >1. Has someone done this type of thing before ?
- We use our DAT drives regularly for experiment data acquisition.
- But we use them on UNIX workstations.
-
- >2. Is there any sort of standard for the (high-level) formatting of data on
- >a DAT drive ?
- The standard is DDS, and is enforced by your drive, if you mean that.
- If you mean, which block size you should use, there is no standard, and
- there will never be a standard for that. The block size depends only on your
- requirements. Block size should be large, or you will suffer from bad
- performance. Use block size in the range of 10 - 32k or even larger,
- if your PC allows that.
-
- >3. Is there a device driver available that allows a DAT to function as a
- >DOS disk drive ?
- Theoretically, this would be possible, but you really don't like that,
- a filesystem for a disk drive lives with random access. You could do that
- with a DAT drive, but think of the access time of 20s compared to 10-20ms
- for a disk drive.
-
- Sincerely,
- Klaus
- --
- Klaus Steinberger Beschleunigerlabor der TU und LMU Muenchen
- Phone: (+49 89)3209 4287 Hochschulgelaende
- FAX: (+49 89)3209 4280 D-8046 Garching, Germany
- Internet: Klaus.Steinberger@Physik.Uni-Muenchen.DE
-