Why can't they make an attractively priced pro-sumer tape drive solution?

thw_9a83c 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is not very realistic. Recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Discs are a much more consumer/prosumer-friendly backup solution, and yet, due to low demand, the market is slowly dying. The market size for prosumer tape drives would probably be even several times smaller.

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Clamchop 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I've never thought of (re)writable optical media for backups as having a particularly good user experience. I'm not saying tape is good or better but blu-ray is a lot of faffing about. In theory, the much larger capacity that tape can provide should reduce the faff factor, but the devil is in the details.

	▲	AmVess an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, DVD and Blu Ray suffered a lot from varying degrees of quality in the media. Low quality chemicals led to huge error rates and unusable media, even after it was written. About 20 years ago, we used to keep track of this stuff. Even batches from normally excellent brands would be bad. We considered this short term, volatile storage. At the end, even the best brands outsourced and we quit using them. Now, M-Disk from Verbatim is decent, although rarely used.

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matheusmoreira 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It was hard to do this before the future of personal computing became uncertain. Now that normal people are being priced out of computing altogether, it's essentially become impossible.

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drbscl 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The market is tiny and already served by surplus enterprise gear

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PowerElectronix 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe if this 5x production ramp up finds that the demand wasn't there long term we will have a prosumer line after all.

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HiringEngineers 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Circa 1994 my parents purchased a PC that came with a QIC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-inch_cartridge) drive, which was less than a $250 addition (closer to ~$500 inflation adjusted). This was just before ZIP drives were announced, back when the standard backup was limited to 1.44MB drives. Wish there was something comparable in the market today.

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MisterMunchkin 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because the entire market would be a few thousand people.

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Isamu 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe that ship has sailed? Used to be a thing, but now people rely on cloud backup and assume they are doing the right thing.

	▲	GuB-42 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Done right, cloud backup actually is "the right thing". There are problems with cloud backups, but they are solvable. One is confidentiality/privacy, that's what encryption is for. The other is that you can lose your data because the could provider doesn't like you, it is a failure mode, in the same way that your tapes can burn. Use redundancy, like with any unreliable storage solution. With an onsite NAS, local copies and cloud backup, you meet the "3 2 1" rule (3 copies, 2 storage types, 1 offsite) without the hassle of dealing with tapes, and it will probably be cheaper too, unless you are particularly data-hungry.

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cyberax 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not enough market demand? A typical user is fine with a small NAS. Hard drives are also easy to buy, and they were relatively cheap.

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Analemma_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tape drives are really picky compared to HDDs: they don't like it when the environment is too hot, or too cold, or too humid, or too dry, or too dusty, or with too many vibrations, etc. They're really only meant for datacenters with controlled environments. A prosumer version would need additional engineering for environmental tolerance that the enterprise ones don't have, and end up costing more, not less, especially with the tiny markets involved.

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dale_glass 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It kinda blows my mind that every tape drive I've seen disassembled seems to make no attempt to filter the air.

As a nerd that formerly had a DDS4 drive it's tempting to get an older LTO drive, but sadly I can't expect it to survive for long in a house full of cat hair.

And it's kinda maddening because it can't be all that hard to have some filters.

	▲	btheconqueror 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		some cut to size air filter material and duct tape from your local home center and you're good to go

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amelius 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe so but my consumer priced 3d printer has this for my filament.

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b112 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tape drives were a thing in an enormous number of companies and offices, all over the world, prior to the last decade. Even now, loads have them.

They're not only used in such controlled environments, but yes, they are pickier.

	▲	EvanAnderson 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I've supported QIC, DDS, VXA, DLT, and LTO drives since the late 90s. The common factor for a good experience has been stable environmentals for the drive. QIC and VXA were probably the most forgiving, with DDS being the worst. I had some bad experiences with DLT, too, but nowhere as bad as DDS. Drives that were over-temped or in dusty environments were the worst, regardless of technology.