On Thu, 13 Apr 2000, Toni Blackwelder wrote:

> Does anyone know if it is worth it to re-use DLT IV tapes
> that were previously used in a system with DLT4000 drives?
> We have a new system with DLT7000 drives and I would
> like to reuse the old tapes, if possible.  If it is not worth
> it, we can buy new ones.  However, this can be expensive.
> Both the old and the new systems use Netbackup.
> 
> Any opinions or previous experiences would be appreciated.

DLT IV tapes work in both drives in exactly the same way, except that the
DLT 7000 drives can write at a higher capacity.  The caveat is, once a tape
has been written at a certain capacity, it will always use that capactity,
unless you override it, or completely clear the tape (with a bulk eraser).
The DLT7000 drives will have a button on them to allow you to override the
capacity (or your driver may have an option to do it).  If you have a lot
of tapes, use the bulk eraser, or if you don't have very many, just use the
capacity override button and write a few bytes of data to the tape, and it
will be a the higher capacity.

Hope this helps!

-- 
        Scott Garrett     mailto:sgarrett AT technomancer DOT com
                                          http://www.technomancer.com

  *** Unix *is* user friendly.  It's just picky about who its friends are.