DLT tapes have been giving me much headache. From the specification, DLT
technology seems very pretty. However, I had to replace over ten tapes in
the last 3 or 4 months. That is painful experience. Yes, definitely do not
use a tape for more than half a year.
By the way, I am using IBM 7337, and the Quantum drives in it have formware
version V65. People are saying that this level of firmware will cause
tape-reading and locating problem. Can somebody confirm this?

Jie

Jie Wu
System and Storage Administrator
ROW Sciences Inc @NCTR FDA
phone: 870-543-7958
fax: 870-543-7382


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Boyes [SMTP:dboyes AT DIMENSION DOT NET]
> Sent: Thursday, August 05, 1999 8:31 AM
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      DLT reliability
>
> >But i'm interested in the reliability of DLT tapes. How many damaged
> >tapes have the members of this list seen in their live?
>
>
> Dozens. DLTs are high density, but very sensitive to environmentals.
> Temperature, pressure, humidity all have a serious impact on DLT
> performance and lifetime -- most small shops don't maintain a controlled
> environment that supports longterm DLT usage.  Drop one or knock it off a
> desk and the data's probably gone. They also hold up very poorly to lots
> of tape positioning requests (in a non-collocated environment, DLTs don't
> work well at all).
>
> In most "open systems" environments, I don't recommend using DLT
> cartridges for more than 4 months before replacing them.  If you look at
> the total lifecycle cost of using the DLTs, the 3590s start to look like a
> good idea very quickly.