Re: QIC Tape 'Survey'

Neil,

  I cannot contradict your statement about maintenance in the field, however,
IMHO IBM's action is not a solution to the problem. They have dropped SOFTWARE
support for a drive with HARDWARE problems. Maintenance is still supported so
they haven't helped themselves at all.

  You may be right about the replacement option but I never saw it and
clearly those deals must be gone as the 6383 is also no longer available. As
for dropping sales of it, no problem - the 16G unit WAS an obvious
replacement. However there have been many (dozens?) of QIC drives dropped from
marketing but this is the *ONLY one that I am aware of that has been dropped
from the list of supported drives.

neilp@dpslink.com wrote:

The 6385 has been trouble since it was first introduced.  Tried to be too
backward compatible and it bit them in the ***.   VERY high replacement
record out in the field for the 6385, so I guess they decided it was best
to dump it.  It may have been unfairly criticized in some cases because as
it was so backward compatible and could write QIC120 tapes, a lot of
customers apparently continued to use older tapes on a regular basis,
which were very abrasive to the newer tape heads.  IBM annouced it's
withdrawal from marketing sometime in 2000 I believe, and it was stated
over a year ago that it would no be supported following V5R1.  There were
special upgrade deals announced last year to replace the 6385 with a newer
QIC model (probably the 6383) but I don't know if they are still in place.

...Neil

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