This is a "SONY SDX-500C  Revision: L201" four tape autoloader.  I've included 
the output from the 'time' command built into the shell so you can see how long
it takes to run this thing (almost 9 hours per test).

=======================================================================
No hardware compression:
------------------------
# time amtapetype -f /dev/tape
Writing 256 Mbyte   compresseable data:  44 sec
Writing 256 Mbyte uncompresseable data:  43 sec
Estimated time to write 2 * 1024 Mbyte: 344 sec = 0 h 5 min
wrote 1520550 32Kb blocks in 4650 files in 13452 seconds (short write)
wrote 1347032 32Kb blocks in 8264 files in 18035 seconds (short write)
define tapetype Sony-SDX500C {
    comment "just produced by tapetype prog (hardware compression off)"
    length 54491 mbytes
    filemark 1536 kbytes
    speed 3003 kps
}

real    533m33.721s
user    0m1.790s
sys     1m18.790s

=======================================================================
Hardware compression:
---------------------
Writing 256 Mbyte   compresseable data:  27 sec
Writing 256 Mbyte uncompresseable data:  48 sec
WARNING: Tape drive has hardware compression enabled
Estimated time to write 2 * 1024 Mbyte: 384 sec = 0 h 6 min
wrote 1247832 32Kb blocks in 3816 files in 12441 seconds (short write)
wrote 1347032 32Kb blocks in 8264 files in 18020 seconds (short write)

define tapetype Sony-SDX500C-HW {
    comment "just produced by tapetype prog (hardware compression on)"
    length 40544 mbytes
    filemark 0 kbytes
    speed 2800 kps
}

real    515m25.773s
user    0m1.410s
sys     1m11.160s