How to Calculate the lifecycle of LTO4 tapes In Networker

[Sudhirranjan]

Hi Friends,

Hope you all are doing well.

My Customer want me to physically destroy the media when their lifecycle gets over so I have below queries in mind . It will be great if some one can answer them :

1) How we can calculate the number of read/write on physical media ?? How much read/write should be allowed before declaring a media as physically expired and can be destroyed ?

2) After how much years a media should be declared to be destroyed?

3) Is possible in networker to track all these Information and send us an alert on their end of Life? Or Any script that can help me with this will great.??


Any advices?

Sudhir Ranjan

 

[gyuzik]

You can look at investing in a LTO reader like the FujiFilm DC Analyser.
http://www.fujifilm.ca/products/storagemedia/accessories/dc_analyser/index.html

I was offered a demo of it once but didn't have a use for it, however this seems to be along the lines of what you're after.

 

[605]

The lifecycle depends on so many issues, especially the environment, that nobody will give you a clear statement.

AFAIR, NW will not reuse tapes which are older than 2 years. However, this is NW's choice.
A lot of customers see the tapes as 'archival' media as well and keep them much longer. I have just read/migrated from LTO3 media to LTO5 without problems. The source tapes were at least 4 years old.

I am not sure about a supporting procedure - maybe EMC AlphaStor can help on this issue.