High failure rate with Sony AIT1 and AIT2 drives

[scotch-tape]

I have installed 22 new Sony AIT1 and AIT2 drives over the past year,
usually as part of a new server. 7 of these drives have failed within
4 months of installation. In one case, we installed the drive,
inserted a new Sony backup media, ran the backup, verified
successfully and could not eject the tape.
Other problems included all three lights flashing at once approx. at
1/2 second intervals (which is undefined in the Sony documentation.)
and failure to respond to tape commands.

Sony claims that these drives do not have a high failure rate. I beg
to differ. I took apart one of the drives to determine why the tape
is not ejecting. The whole ejection mechanism is subject to a design
flaw which makes it very easy for the tape to become permanently
stuck.

Please send me your opinions and I will forward them to Sony.

Thanks!

 

[scotch-tape]

Update to my previous message: We just had another drive fail. This
brings the tally to 8 out of 22. This drive was less than a year old.