Thanks for the quick reply. Our Application has its own database backup that can go to tape drive, IBM's TSM or Symantec's NetBackup. We are looking at a new development system (IBM) and they suggested the USB tape drive instead of the standard SCSI 4mm. I think mainly because it would not require another PCI slot to be used. Some of our customers do not have an Enterprise Backup Solution such as TSM or NetBackup and still need to do backups is the reason we still support tape drives. I was just trying to see what may change as far as device names and functionality if it was a USB tape drive. If the device name is the same and functions the same, then nothing will have to change in the backup program. I am sure the transfer rate will be somewhat less. But that will be OK, because the customers using tape drives generally have a lot less data to backup anyway. ------------------------- Jackson C. Allen McKesson Provider Technologies 5995 Windward Parkway Alpharetta, GA 30005 (404) 338-2023 Jack.Allen@xxxxxxxxxxxx Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. -----Original Message----- From: redhat-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:redhat-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michael Scully Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 6:20 PM To: General Red Hat Linux discussion list Subject: Re: USB Tape drives Jackson: Unless you need to exchange data with other tape drives, I'd SERIOUSLY forget about tapes. When you can get USB attached 500 GB hard drives for $59.99 at any WalMart, why would you want tape? You can reformat the hard drives with ext3 partitions and write to them direct. Most of the tape backup utilities will support USB hard drives as well. But when I last had a customer with an external drive like that (on a 1U rack server), it did just become /dev/st0. MS On May 31, 2011, at 3:12 PM, Allen, Jack wrote: > Hello: > > Has anybody used the USB 4mm Tape Drive that IBM offers? > > Does it appear as /dev/st0 or some other device name? > > Does it function just like a SCSI attached 4mm tape drive? > > ------------------------- > Jackson C. Allen > McKesson Provider Technologies > 5995 Windward Parkway > Alpharetta, GA 30005 > (404) 338-2023 -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list