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LTO5 media, when to retire?

Bill_Clark22
Level 3

Curious as to what others are doing with older LTO5 media.  We have many taopes that are getting high on "total hours of use" according to the "Details" section within BUE16.  By high, I mean over 300 hours.  My question is this, what is really the determining factor on when to replace tape media?  Is it by the number of mounts, number of seeks?  Perhaps total bytes read or written?  So far these "high hour" tapes aren't producing any errors, so my thoughts are that until they do, keep using them.  Any difference of opinion?  Btw, these tapes are part of a monthly rotation, with roughly 1TB written to the tape, once a month.

1 REPLY 1

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
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The stats that you should be looking at are the soft and hard errors, especially the hard errors. If the tape has a lot of errors then it is time to replace it.

How long a tape lasts depends on how it is stored and how it is handled. Dust and dirt on the tape head will also damage the tape so regular cleaning of the tape head is recommended