Tape or Other Media / Common

List Members,
  We are getting ready to upgrade our machine and are taking
the opportunity to review our external media choices.  We
currently use a Magstar drive and an 8M tape drive.   We use
our external media to interface with other computers, quite
often non-AS400 (IBM mainframes and such).  Our understanding
is that the Magstar is only an "AS400 world" drive.
   We would like to make sure that our media choice would be
something that would be commonly used by the rest of the
computing community so that our interfacing options will not be
hampered or limited and that it will not just simply become
obsolete in the near future.
   What is your input as far as what is most commonly used or
preferred in the rest of the non-AS400 world?   Are people getting
away from tape drives and cartridges entirely?  Are they gravitating
to CD's or other media?   Just trying to gather some other opinions
and see what the rest of the world has to say.

Thanks much,

Deborah Panco
Senior Systems Analyst / Project Leader
United Consumer Financial Services
dpanco43@ix.netcom.com
440-835-6674