For writes & rewrites I believe the tapes are guaranteed for life.

     we take in about 1.7 TB nightly, have somewhere around 5,000+ tapes,
     in the last 3-4 years I can only think of 3, maybe 4 tapes that we
     sent back for replacement.

     In other words... when ever a tape error showed up, it was a tape
     drive head out of adjustment, cleaning brush problem, ... something
     other than a tape media problem  (except those 3 or 4 times and those
     were probably due to the out of adjustment drives)

     later,
           Dwight


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: How long can I use one 3590 tape?
Author:  jeheo (jeheo AT KR.IBM DOT COM) at unix,mime
Date:    2/3/99 3:56 AM


Hello.

My customer backup everyday full backup.
With 3590 & ADSM.

Because they have writed all of the tapes everyday for
last 3 years, They have a question about tape's reliability.

In the above environment, how often should change the tapes?
Thanks in advance.





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Heo, Jeong Eun
IBM KOREA / PSS / RS/6000 TEAM / TEL 82-2-781-7596
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