Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!ucsd!celit!hutch
From: hutch@fps.com (Jim Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs
Subject: 3480 tapes vs. humidity
Message-ID: <11818@celit.fps.com>
Date: 20 Oct 90 00:54:14 GMT
Sender: daemon@fps.com
Reply-To: hutch@fps.com (Jim Hutchison)
Organization: FPS Computing
Lines: 23

We've recently had some interesting experiences with 3480 tape cartridges
which have experienced high humidity.  It appears that after running for a
while, they heat up and glue themselve to the tape head.

We had an air conditioning failure which exposed the tapes to relatively high
humidity (it fealt a lot like a green house).  I've only seen this problem
with a StorageTek 4280.  The Fujitsu M2481 we have was unfortunately not
allowed to be used for an experiment to see if it would fail in a similar
fashion.

I was informed that this is a common failing of the 3480 media (by StorageTek
field service).  It's not the kind of thing you'd see in a computer room, but
shipping an improperly packaged tape might get you there.  In the lab, we now
store the media in a large piece of tupperware with silica bags (yep, overkill)
to avoid future problems.  This seems a large nuisance for most users.

Has anyone else had any experiences with this problem?

(If I get sufficient responses, I'll post a summary)
--
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Jim Hutchison		{dcdwest,ucbvax}!ucsd!fps!hutch
Disclaimer:  I am not an official spokesman for FPS computing