Rivergate Software Inc. - makers of DVDAfterEdit

There is a tremendous difference in the transfer rates of the various drive models. If you use a DLT III tape on a later model, the speed reverts to that of a DLT2000. The speeds are:

DLT2000 - 1.25 mb/sec.
DLT4000 - 1.5 mb/sec.
DLT7000 - 5 mb/sec.
DLT8000 - 6 mb/sec.

As you can see, there is a great speed improvement in going to at least a DLT7000, and a DLT8000 will write four times faster than a DLT4000. If you want to read tapes supplied by other people, you need a DLT8000 in order to be able to read a tape created on any drive.