[spacedcowboy]

Too loud for an office. Which is a shame because in these pandemic times, I repurposed the shed at the bottom of the garden as an office (insulated, add power and a/c) and I wanted it there.

It's not noisy when writing to tape, but the mechanism is noisy when a tape is being loaded, the magazine is being shuffled to get the right tape, etc. It's the mechanical parts rather than the tape drive itself that's too loud, especially with Webex conferencing being a part of the day now.

So I have it set up in the garage, in the server-rack. I was worried about temperatures in the Summer, so I bought a 100W solar panel, an attic fan, and linked them up, positioning the fan above the rack. That fan shifts so much air that the in-rack fans (with temperature monitoring) didn't get above 85 all summer, which is pretty amazing for the Bay Area. The tape deck seems to be fine in that sort of temperature, and yes I do do the occasional 'tar tvf' to check the data is readable :)

[simplyaccont]

Thanks. Are there any continuously running fans when it's not actively working ? Or something else that makes a noise ?

I got an HP IP KVM switch a while ago. When it's on, it makes as much noise as a bunch of servers or a blade center. Got some fans for retrofit...

[spacedcowboy]

Yes. I'd forgotten about that. There is a reasonably-above-ambient-noise fan that is running constantly. Another reason it was banished to the server-rack in the garage.

[simplyaccont]

one more, did you get it at full price or you found it somewhere at discount/used ? i been trying for a few years, on and off to find something

[spacedcowboy]

I got mine at Backupworks.com[1] - they seem to have a perpetual sale on for pricier items like this. They gave me a discount on a batch of tapes bought at the same time and threw in some barcodes and a cleaner tape as well.

[1] https://www.backupworks.com/quantum-superloader-3-LTO.aspx