Exabyte TR3 Tape Drive $10

[Beldar]

Don't flame me if you dont like tape drives. They are great for small servers, and better than CD for small backup windows.

The only bad thing about this deal is that the cartridges are still expensive. Let me know if anyone knows of a source for cheap tapes.

link

 

[crobusa]

Nice, too bad the cheapest media I can find on PW is 3.2/1.6GB TR3 @ $8 on pricewatch by L&M Computer Products.
Do you know if this is SCSI or IDE, what OS have drives for this?

 

[wfay]

decent drive, nice price, but these specs kill it for me...

Maximum Capacity: 4.4GB
Maximum Speed: 20MB/Min

20MB/Min = 220Min = 3.6hrs for 4.4GB backup!

 

[SearchMaster]

They also have a TR-4 drive (4GB/8GB) for $14.99.

Yes, these drives are slow, and the media is very expensive. I have a TR-4 that my company bought for me about six years ago (bought my first super-quick 2x CD-RW a year later). I still use it occasionally for backups. I ghost a backup over the network, then store the backup to CD-R and to tape. It never hurts to have multiple backups, I always say.

My network ghost machine is running Win98 (the only Win98 on my network), and it automatically recognizes the tape drive. You have to install the backup application which is not done by default. I assume Win2K/XP will recognize it as well, but I've never had the need to try it out. BTW my drive is a Connor/Seagate, FWIW.

[edit]bad linky[/edit]

 

[TheDon]

Make sure you can get XP drivers for this drive if you need them. I have an Exabyte Eagle TR-3 that I can't use under XP because I can't find a driver anwhere.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: TheDon
Make sure you can get XP drivers for this drive if you need them. I have an Exabyte Eagle TR-3 that I can't use under XP because I can't find a driver anwhere.

I was under the impression you didn't need drivers. You just rely on the backup software to support your particular tape drive. Like CD ROW drives, you dont use drivers, the CD writing software supports it for writing.

 

[TheDon]

That's correct, however this is an old drive (I bought mine in 1996) and you need to make sure your B/U program supports it. Windows 98 had native support for this drive, but WP does not. Also, Exabyte no longer supports this drive. I wish I could get mine to work long enough to retrive a couple of flies. Also, if you ever need to re-format the tape it'll take a few days 😉.

Originally posted by: Devistater

Originally posted by: TheDon
Make sure you can get XP drivers for this drive if you need them. I have an Exabyte Eagle TR-3 that I can't use under XP because I can't find a driver anwhere.

I was under the impression you didn't need drivers. You just rely on the backup software to support your particular tape drive. Like CD ROW drives, you dont use drivers, the CD writing software supports it for writing.

 

[Beldar]

The TR3 uses floppy connection and the TR4 uses IDE. I tried the TR3 and it worked on 2K and ME. I dont have XP so I cant tell. I did not need any additional drivers. The tapes can be found cheap at the computer shows. They seem to think that they are junk, so I got them for only $3 each.

 

[ozone13]

Thanks for the deal. I needed something pretty cheap but with okay capacity for some "I can't live if something happened to this data" stuff. 🙂 I just hope that there isn't a problem using this with win2k or winxp.

Anyone know of a good place to get some tapes for the tr-4i?

 

[fr]

The prices for this stuff on eBay is about the same. I saw a few TR-4 tapes starting at $0.01.

I had a DC2120 tape drive when I was in middle school. I believe they were 120MB uncompressed. It was slow as a mofo and a few years ago my tapes wouldn't read any more.

 

[TheDon]

Originally posted by: Beldar
The TR3 uses floppy connection and the TR4 uses IDE. I tried the TR3 and it worked on 2K and ME. I dont have XP so I cant tell. I did not need any additional drivers. The tapes can be found cheap at the computer shows. They seem to think that they are junk, so I got them for only $3 each.

I have XP PRO. I also have the TR-3 hooked to the floppy controller, (no available slot for the accelerator card), and a TR-4. Neither is supported by XP's backup program .

 

[reicherb]

Has anybody been able to find media for the TR-4 drive (4GB/8GB)?

edit: I missed fr's post.

 

[AdamsJabbar]

I'm surprised people are complaining about backup tapes for under $10. Mammoth-2 tapes are 80 bucks a pop (but they do hold 60GB/150GB per tape). 😀

 

[salfter]

Has anybody been able to find media for the TR-4 drive (4GB/8GB)?

A couple minutes of googling should turn up a few hits. Expect to pay $25-$30 per tape. (My MP3s are going onto tapes as I write this...was given an HP SureStore T4i and some tapes by a previous employer, and I still have an Exabyte Eagle TR-4i around here somewhere. (The difference is that the HP is a SCSI tape drive, while the Exabyte is an IDE drive.)

 

[ozone13]

Got the TR-4i in the mail yesterday. Hooked it up to my win2k server box, but there weren't any built in drivers for it and windows wouldn't recognize it. Got to looking online, and saw that Exabyte is out of business. Couldn't find any drivers anywhere. Decided to go ahead and install my out backup software I had (Veritas) since the software that came with it was so out of date (DOS, Windows 95!!).

Found out that Veritas had drivers built into it specifically for the tr-4i!!! 🙂 After rebooting, windows 2000 recognized the drive, did a test backup and restore. Everything worked like a charm. The only problem was finding the tapes themselves. Looked all over Houston....finally found them at Microcenter for $35 each (about what I'd pay for them online after taxes and shipping....so I said screw it and bought it).

Backed up 3.5GB worth of data onto the tape successfully.....took 4 1/2 hours though to back up that much data.

Anyone else bought this drive and had similar results???

 

[TheDon]

Did anyone get the tr-3 to work under XP? There are some files I'd like to retrieve off of mine.

Originally posted by: ozone13
Got the TR-4i in the mail yesterday. Hooked it up to my win2k server box, but there weren't any built in drivers for it and windows wouldn't recognize it. Got to looking online, and saw that Exabyte is out of business. Couldn't find any drivers anywhere. Decided to go ahead and install my out backup software I had (Veritas) since the software that came with it was so out of date (DOS, Windows 95!!).

Found out that Veritas had drivers built into it specifically for the tr-4i!!! 🙂 After rebooting, windows 2000 recognized the drive, did a test backup and restore. Everything worked like a charm. The only problem was finding the tapes themselves. Looked all over Houston....finally found them at Microcenter for $35 each (about what I'd pay for them online after taxes and shipping....so I said screw it and bought it).

Backed up 3.5GB worth of data onto the tape successfully.....took 4 1/2 hours though to back up that much data.

Anyone else bought this drive and had similar results???