Tape Drive Compatibility
eMag Solutions offer a range of products and services for converting and transferring data between different computers systems and different tape media. This page gives detailed information on tape drives and capacities.
MMPC is designed to operate with the most commonly available tape drives. The list is always growing as new drives are released. The currently supported drives are as below, with a few notes as to their individual capabilities.
If a user wishes to purchase a new type of drive, eMag will always be happy to recommend a suitable model. Any such recommendation does not infer that drives from other manufacturers are less suitable, but simply a case of the drives that eMag uses on a daily basis and have been found to be satisfactory.
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| DLT SDLT Dec TK |
Recent Drives
We support the whole range from DC600 up to SLR60
A major compatibility problem with certain DC600 drives is whether they can handle variable block size tapes. Certain older drives could only read tapes as fixed 512-byte blocks. For many DOS formats this is not a problem, but for IBM Labelled tapes this becomes a major difficulty, and writing becomes impossible. For full flexibility, these drives cannot be recommend. DC600 drives also come in many densities which are also dictated by the type of tape used. No one drive can currently read and write all possible tape densities.
It is always recommended that the highest specification drive that can read the required densities is purchased. This will give the longest life span as higher density tapes become more common.
| Manufacturer | Model | Read | Write | ID String |
| Tandberg | TDC3600 | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | TDC 3600 |
| QIC-120 | QIC-120 | |||
| QIC-150 | QIC-150 | |||
| TDC3800 | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | TDC 3800 | |
| SLR2 | QIC-120 | QIC-120 | TANDBERG SLR2 | |
| QIC-150 | QIC-150 | |||
| QIC-525 | QIC-525 | |||
| TDC4200 | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | TDC 4200 | |
| SLR3 | QIC-120 | QIC-120 | TANDBERG SLR3 | |
| QIC-150 | QIC-150 | |||
| QIC-525 | QIC-525 | |||
| QIC-1GB | QIC-1GB | |||
| QIC-2GB | QIC-2GB | |||
| TDC4222 | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | TDC 4222 | |
| SLR4 | QIC-120 | QIC-120 | TANDBERG SLR4 | |
| SLR5 | QIC-150 | QIC-150 | TANDBERG SLR5 | |
| QIC-525 | QIC-525 | |||
| QIC-1GB | QIC-1GB | |||
| QIC-2GB-C | QIC-2GB-C | |||
| Archive | Viper | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | ARCHIVE V |
| QIC-120 | QIC-120 | |||
| QIC-150 | QIC-150 | |||
| QIC-525 | QIC-525 | |||
| Wangtek | 5150 | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | 5150 |
| QIC-120 | QIC-120 | |||
| QIC-150 | QIC-150 | |||
| 5525E | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | 5525E | |
| QIC-120 | QIC-120 | |||
| QIC-150 | QIC-150 | |||
| Sankyo | CP525 | QIC-24 | QIC-24 | SANKYO CP525 |
| QIC-120 | QIC-120 | |||
| QIC-150 | QIC-150 | |||
| QIC-525 | QIC-525 |
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| DLT SDLT Dec TK |
The DAT standard has slowly increased over the years, from DDS1 to DDS4. Early DDS1 drives did not always support compression.
| Manufacturer | Model | Read | Write | ID String |
| Hewlett Packard | HP35470 | DDS1 | DDS1 | HP35470 |
| HP35480 | DDS1 | DDS1 | HP35480 | |
| DDS1-C | DDS1-C | |||
| C1533A | DDS1 | DDS1 | C1533A | |
| C1534 | DDS1-C | DDS1-C | C1534 | |
| C1536 | DDS2 | DDS2 | C1536 | |
| DDS2-C | DDS2-C | |||
| C1537 | DDS1 | DDS1 | C1537 | |
| DDS1-C | DDS1-C | |||
| DDS2 | DDS2 | |||
| DDS2-C | DDS2-C | |||
| DDS3 | DDS3 | |||
| Sony | 5000 | DDS1 | DDS1 | SDT-5000 |
| DDS1-C | DDS1-C | |||
| DDS2 | DDS2 | |||
| DDS2-C | DDS2-C | |||
| 9000 | DDS1 | DDS1 | SDT-9000 | |
| DDS1-C | DDS1-C | |||
| DDS2 | DDS2 | |||
| DDS2-C | DDS2-C | |||
| DDS3 | DDS3 | |||
| Wangdat | Wangdat | DDS1 | DDS1 | WANGDAT |
| DDS1-C | DDS1-C | |||
| DDS2 | DDS2 | |||
| DDS2-C | DDS2-C | |||
| Wangtek | 6130 | DDS1 | DDS1 | WANGTEK 6130 |
| DDS1-C | DDS1-C | |||
| DDS2 | DDS2 | |||
| DDS2-C | DDS2-C |
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The Exabyte standards are generally based on two basic recording levels, 8200 and 8500, with and without compression, and extra length tapes.
| Manufacturer | Model | Read | Write | ID String |
| Exabyte | 8200 | 8200 | 8200 | EXB-82 |
| 8500 | 8200 | 8200 | EXB-8500 | |
| 8500 | 8500 | |||
| 8205 | 8200 | 8200 | EXB-82 | |
| 8200C | 8200C | |||
| 8505 | 8200 | 8200 | EXB8500C | |
| 8200C | 8200C | |||
| 8500 | 8500 | |||
| 8500C | 8500C | |||
| 8505XL | 8200 | 8200 | EXB8500H | |
| 8200C | 8200C | |||
| 8500 | 8500 | |||
| 8500C | 8500C | |||
| 8500XL | 8500XL | |||
| Eliant | 8200 | 8500 | EXB8500H | |
| 8200C | 8500C | |||
| 8500 | 8500XL | |||
| 8500C | ||||
| 8500XL |
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| DLT SDLT Dec TK |
The IBM 3480/90/90E range of drives are basically eighteen or thirty-six track with optional compression. The standards are therefore: 3480 (18-track); 3490 (18-track with compression); 3490E (36-track with compression).
| Manufacturer | Model | Read | Write | ID String |
| Cipher | T480 | 3480 | 3480 | CIPHER T480 |
| L480 | CIPHER L480 | |||
| T490 | 3480 | 3480 | CIPHER T490 | |
| L490 | 3490 | 3490 | CIPHER L490 | |
| Fujitsu | M1016B | 3480 | 3480* | FUJITSU M1016B |
| 3490 | 3490* | FUJITSU M10116B | ||
| 3490E | 3490E | |||
| M2483 | 3480 | 3490E | FUJITSU M2483 | |
| 3490 | ||||
| 3490E | ||||
| M2488 | 3480 | 3480 | FUJITSU M2488 | |
| 3490 | 3490 | |||
| 3490E | 3490E | |||
| Overland | T480 | 3480 | 3480 | OVERLAND T480 |
| L480 | OVERLAND L480 | |||
| T490 | 3480 | 3480 | OVERLAND T490 | |
| L490 | 3490 | 3490 | OVERLAND L490 | |
| T490E | 3480 | 3480 | OVERLAND T490E | |
| L490E | 3490 | 3490 | OVERLAND L490E | |
| 3490E | 3490E | |||
| STK | 4280 | 3480 | 3480 | STK 4280 |
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| DLT SDLT Dec TK |
The DLT (Digital Linear Tape) range has now replaced the DEC TK models. Unfortunately, the most recent drives no longer support the original TK50 and TK70 tapes. On a positive note, the drive is extremely fast and tape capacities very high.
| Manufacturer | Model | Read | Write | ID String |
| Cipher | 826 | TK50 | TK85 | CIPHER T826 |
| TK70 | ||||
| TK85 | ||||
| 860 | TK50 | TK85 | CIPHER T860 | |
| TK70 | TK86 | |||
| TK85 | ||||
| TK86 | ||||
| DEC | TZ85 | TK50 | TK85 | DEC TZ85 |
| TK70 | ||||
| TK85 | ||||
| DEC | DLT2000 | TK50* | TK85 | DEC DLT2 |
| TK70* | TK86 | |||
| TK85 | TK87 | |||
| TK86 | ||||
| TK87 | ||||
| DLT4000 | TK85 | TK85 | DEC DLT4 | |
| TK86 | TK86 | |||
| TK87 | TK87 | |||
| TK88 | TK88 | |||
| Quantum | DLT | TK85 | TK85 | QUANTUM DLT |
| TK86 | TK86 | |||
| TK87 | TK87 |
*only certain drives are calibrated to readTK50 and TK70 tapes
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This is the oldest, and probably best known form of magnetic tape. Typically, they come on 7" or 10" reels. The tape drives tend to be large and rather expensive, but they have become almost universal. There are four standard densities of tape: 800, 1600, 3200 and 6250bpi.
| Manufacturer | Model | Read | Write | ID String |
| Bull | 9914 | 800bpi | 800bpi | Bull 9914 |
| 1600bpi | 1600bpi | |||
| 3200bpi | 3200bpi | |||
| 6250bpi | 6250bpi | |||
| Cipher | 8800 | NCR H6210 | ||
| M995 | CIPHER M995 | |||
| Hewlett Packard | HP 88 | HP 88 | ||
| HP 79 | HP 79 | |||
| Kennedy | Kennedy | |||
| M4 Data | 9914 | 800bpi | 800bpi | M4 Data |
| 1600bpi | 1600bpi | |||
| 3200bpi | 3200bpi | |||
| 6250bpi | 6250bpi | |||
| 9903 | M4 Data | |||
| Overland | OVERLAND | |||
| Qualstar | Qualstar | |||
| NCR ADP | ||||
| STK | STK O |
eMag Solutions
(formerly InterMedia)
Waterside Centre
North Street
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 2PE
United Kingdom
Tel (44) 02920 739940
Fax (44) 02920 739948