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Back Up Tape Question

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4 replies

by eclopton

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Will it harm, corrupt, or shorten the life of my back up tapes if we leave them in the drive for 24 hour periods? we use DDS-2 and LTO2 tapes. Basically we want to have a script automatically back them up at a said time(noon), then before I go home(4:30pm) I will remove the tapes and put in 2 new ones for the next days back up.

4 replies

by sgt_shultz

you can leave the tapes in place. no problemo. why don't you email this question to the manufacturer of your drive unit and let us know if they say different?
Just remember to clean the drive head(s) periodically...and replace the cleaner tape per manufacturers instructions.
I like that you are worried about this. personally, this is kind of attitude I desire in my backup admins.

by hal 9000

Technically the tapes will only suffer damage when something happens to them so if you have a storm or flood they could be damaged but just sitting in the drives will not cause any problems unless that Drive has failed and is doing something wrong.

Just one question here have you tried restoring your Backup's to different hardware. Not many people think of this and have a nasty shock when it's required.

Col

by rclark2

We have never worn one out yet, and we are up to Ultrium 3's and looking at Ultrium 4s.

The LTO technology doesn't seem to wear out the tapes. As for the DDS-2, I don't think we ever wore one of those out either, but they tend to be a little more looseable than the LTO tapes. As for sitting in the drive, we normally only replace the tapes that were used, and we have a 6 stacker, so the tapes in 5 and 6 are not used except on big backups and they always work. So for at least two weeks it's ok.......

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