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Dropped an LTO tape. What is the recommended or best practice ?

ilovemywillow
Level 3

Dropped an LTO tape.  What is the recommended or best practice for this?  After I verify it is not broken via a visual inspection what do other admins do?  I heard that I need to duplicate the tape and then discard the dropped one?   Re-tension the tape (the person was not familiar with LTO not needing this),

I am wondering what Symantec recommends or what the other backup admins out there do.

 

Karen Grider

FedEx Express

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited
Bin it ... If you really need the data on it, copy it, then bin it. There is an outside chance it could damage a drive. You could fsf and the rew it on unix / linux to get the tape pack flat (so the 'strands' of tape are not sticking up like if you undid a paper roll and then wound it back up again, the edges would stick out and not be 'flat' ) but I wouldn't recommend it. This would only work if the tape was full - you could re-tension, think there is an mt option for this on unix. If the tape has ever run at below streaming speed this also causes the tape edges to 'protrude', as the constant stop /start and ref fsf the drive will do un-tensions the tape - when dropped the edges get creased as they hit the inside of the casing - known as edge damage. As data is written upto the edges of LTO this is when you get tape failure. LTOs can need re-tensioning as explained above. For the cost of a single tape it's just not worth the risk. I once binned about £5000 worth of tapes that had been incorrectly packaged for transport (not by me ....).

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3 REPLIES 3

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited
Bin it ... If you really need the data on it, copy it, then bin it. There is an outside chance it could damage a drive. You could fsf and the rew it on unix / linux to get the tape pack flat (so the 'strands' of tape are not sticking up like if you undid a paper roll and then wound it back up again, the edges would stick out and not be 'flat' ) but I wouldn't recommend it. This would only work if the tape was full - you could re-tension, think there is an mt option for this on unix. If the tape has ever run at below streaming speed this also causes the tape edges to 'protrude', as the constant stop /start and ref fsf the drive will do un-tensions the tape - when dropped the edges get creased as they hit the inside of the casing - known as edge damage. As data is written upto the edges of LTO this is when you get tape failure. LTOs can need re-tensioning as explained above. For the cost of a single tape it's just not worth the risk. I once binned about £5000 worth of tapes that had been incorrectly packaged for transport (not by me ....).

SymTerry
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Hello,

As mph999 said, you really don't want to keep using that tape. If you can duplicate the data or make a new tape from data on disk, that would be best. If you do find that the tape is damaged, and you have no way of making a new tape, you will need to contact a data recovery group and have them pull the data off. 

Nicolai
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP   

Put the tape on the shelve and bin after data has expired. The change you need the tape for restore are high the first couple of days. After the changes are very small.

Personally I would not use time for duplication - but that's mine personal opinion.