We recently aquired a number of DLT-IV and DDS-1 tapes, and we'd like to recover the data stored on them. We already have readers for both tape formats; however these are both SCSI devices, and since modern PCs don't have SCSI connectors we cannot hook them up directly. After a bit of Googling I came up with a few options myself:
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Buy a SCSI to USB adapter cable (used, as these are not produced anymore). However, I came across some reports that this is not a good option for tape drives, as tape transport commands (rewind, fas-forward) won't work. See e.g. here
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Buy a writeblocker that has a SCSI connection. I'd expect that this would have the same limitations as option 1 above (also, these days no-one seems to be making SCSI writeblockers anymore)
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Buy a used SCSI adapter card and build that into the machine that is used for imaging (but are these cards even compatible with modern desktops?).
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Do the imaging using an old desktop that already has a SCSI card (or is compatible with it). For various reasons I'd rather not go this route unless absolutely necessary ...
As I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I'm curious if anyone with experience reading SCSI-connected tape drives could give me some recommendations on the best way to proceed with this. (BTW the workstation we'll be using for data extraction runs Linux.)