Media Compatability question

Okay, can anyone clarify this issue for me?

I've got a Conner TSM1700 tape drive, attached to a 2Mb HSC. The drive has
been hiding in a dark, dry place for the last 5 years or so, I found it
while cleaning and went "hmmmm... I think I can actually use this now that
I've got a proper network and my data is properly organized", so I went and
threw together a 486 and tossed the drive and controller in it. The machine
is running Debian. I'm going to dump to it across the network from my
FreeBSD machine.

FTape is configured and running well on the machine in question, I've got no
problems with it.

My question is regarding media. I've got three Sony "QIC-3020XLF" tapes,
which are labelled as "QIC-3020-MC Preformatted Media". These tapes have
seen almost no usage, but they are at least 5 years old, they've been kept
in the dark and dry, and seem to still be usable. Obviously however, I'm
looking for some newer tapes.

These tapes are, as far as I can tell, QIC-3020/WIDE type tapes. As far as I
can tell "Travan 3" or "TR-3" tapes are just rebranded QIC-3020/WIDE tapes,
but at this web page, Seagate (Connor's owner) does NOT list TR-3 tapes as
compatable with this drive.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/tape/spec2000.html Is this purely
marketing, or are there actual technical differences between QIC-3020/WIDE
media and Travan-3 media that would prevent me using Travan-3 media in my
drive? As I'm sure you can imagine, I am interested in using TR-3-EX
cartridges, giving me a 2.2GB capacity per tape.

Additionally, the ftape-faq (I think) includes some rather scathing comments
on the quality of Verbatim media. Has this situation changed in the
following years, or is Verbatim media still something to be avoided?


Thanks for your time,

Andrew Fremantle

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