Jeff and Kelly ...

Don't look to the Tivoli software to solve all the "issues" involved
in long-term data storage.  Hardware obsolescence must be considered,
as well as media life, and having redundant copies, at multiple locations,
such as would be recommended in a real DR plan.

Kelly, mixing archive files and backup files, and using reclamation,
doesn't quite give me that warm, fuzzy feeling I'd like to have.

Archive files are usually the data you absolutely need to protect for
regulatory, legal, scientific, or historical reasons!  And, if this data is
really so valuable, doesn't it follow that it deserves more attention?

A separate procedure to "exercise" (read/clean/retension) archive media,
refresh the media based on some threshold of read errors, and, ultimately,
 media/format conversion should be employed, regardless of the
volume of data ...

Tis a conundrum !