Hi Dave
Your concerns are spot-on. Another facet to help you lose sleep is that the
magnetic signal on those tapes degrades every day and, at some point, the tape
drives will no longer be able to read those tapes. How long it takes for that
to happen is influenced by many factors, including the quality of the media,
the quality of the tape drive design, the conditions in which the tapes are
stored, etc.
So, in addition to needing to move your data off of media before the technology
isn't supported, you also need to move it before the tapes become unreadable.
tl
> -----Original Message-----
> From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU]
> On Behalf Of Browning, David
> Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 2:43 PM
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: [Networker] long term retention of data and old hardware
>
> Just out of curiosity, what is everyone doing in terms of long term
> retention of data, and still being able to read old tapes?
>
>
>
> For example, we have thousands of old LTO-2 and LTO-3 tapes. We are
> looking to upgrade to LTO-5, but then that would mean we can't read our
> old LTO-2 tapes, unless we keep at least 1, or more, LTO-3 drives.
> Right now, that really isn't a problem.
>
>
>
> What happens 5, or 10, years from now, when LTO-3 drives are no longer
> available for service?
>
>
>
> Our regulatory requirements are to keep some of our data upwards of 30
> years, so this question is not going away any time soon.
>
>
>
> - Dave.
>
>
>
> David M. Browning Jr.
>
> IT Project Coordinator Enterprise Backups and Help Desk
>
>
>
>
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