Kees Vernooij wrote: >Some VTL's (a.o. TS77xx) have a backend tapelibrary >with physical tapes. They need to be erased too. >When we dismissed our STK tapelibrary, we hired a >degausser to erase the data on the tapes.
FYI, modern tape media, including all IBM 3592 series, have prerecorded servo tracks. Degaussing such tape media will not only erase the data but will also render the tapes unable to store any future data. Tape cartridges are designed for mobility, and in my view (I'm not alone) they are the highest priority for implementation of storage-level encryption. All IBM 3592 family tape drives beginning with the IBM TS1120 support tape device-level encryption. You just have to configure it and follow the implementation steps to use it. Then, when it comes time to dispose media, you either destroy or retain the keys, and you're done -- and the tape media can be sold or donated, and reused. If you haven't encrypted your tapes and need to protect data then please consider overwriting the tapes so that they can be sold or donated. There is often some value in the tape media. Degaussing, however, means the tape cartridges are trashed, hopefully recycled for their materials in an environmentally responsible way. Hard drives are much the same and have been for many years. Degaussing utterly destroys them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM Z & LinuxONE, Multi-Geography E-Mail: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
