Travan tape drive problem

[TonyGroves]

My home development machine has a 5-year-old Seagate Travan 5 (10/20 GB) IDE tape drive, which I have been using whenever the humour hits me (about every 2 weeks), as well as backing up programs to CD and data to Zip disc. Now, recently the drive has been giving trouble. The last time I used it, when re-tensioning it sped out of control and burst the tape when it reached the end. The time before that, it chewed up the tape. That's both my tapes trashed, at 40 euro each. What I'm wondering is, has anybody here had similar experiences, did they manage to get the drive repaired, and do they think it's worth it? Alternatively, can anybody recommend a better backup system than the Travan system, which seems to rely on cheap drives but expensive tapes?

Thanks.

 

[bjverzal]

I *hate* travan. Get a used Mammoth unit from eBay.

BV

 

[TonyGroves]

Thanks, I'll have a look into that.

 

[bfks3230]

Maybe you could try Jaz disks or DVD's. Travan drives are junk and SLOW.