R.S. wrote:
Richman, Saul pisze:
Hello,
Anyone with experience of re-using "old" tapes?
Can we reuse physical 3590 Cartridges (High-Performance Model-B11)
that have been stored for ca. 6 Years in Computer Room condition?
Our (non-IBM) Engineer claims:
"Old tapes that have been left in storage can damage the Drive heads
in our VTS"
True or False?
The tapes come from a VTS B18 Machine that was decommissioned due to
ahem, the collapse of Swissair…
They had been used for only ca. 2 years.
We have re-inserted ca. 30 cartriges, and had a handful of ejects so
far.
Whilst I'm here, our 2 current VTS B18 models are now approaching
their 10th Birthday!!
I'll be buying them a new Wii console and some chocolate and
ice-cream .-))
Seriously, can any shop beat 10 years of continual VTS B18 Operations?
Not a competition, just out of interest.
1. It has nothing to do with VTS, except the fact VTS uses real drives
in real 3494 library. So the problem regards 3590 drives in the library.
2. See IBM statements about tape life periods. AFAIK your tapes did
not exceeded any of them.
3. Risk of drive damage is FUD. Don't believe it. At worst your tapes
will claim nonrecorverable errors. Of course the assumption that the
tapes were stored in good conditions is crucial here.
My $0.02
I agree the likelyhood of damaging a drive is unlikely if the tapes have
been boxed and stored in the correct environmental conditions. I haven't
had of any problems with 3590 media. Mind you the last time media gave
me a serious problems was with 3420's. But the only way you are going
to be sure the media is good is to verify the tape by writing to it and
reading it back the data. It is would be better to find any problems now
rather than wait until you get hit in production. Please feel free to
contact me off list if you would like my recommendations.
Tony.
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