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From: buckland@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.multimedia,comp.misc,misc.misc,sci.electronics,comp.databases
Subject: Re: What is the life-time of magnetic tape?????
Keywords: magnetic tape
Message-ID: <1991Jan18.192040.23311@unixg.ubc.ca>
Date: 18 Jan 91 19:20:40 GMT
References: <1991Jan17.183902.24474@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
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Organization: Computing Services, University of British Columbia
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In article <1991Jan17.183902.24474@watdragon.waterloo.edu> daford@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Daniel Ford) writes:
>I have an old reference that states that the life-time of well cared for
>magnetic tape is about 2 years.  
>Is that the current state of affairs for magnetic tape?
>What is the expected life-time (i.e., you can still read what you wrote) today?

 I have been using tapes for about two decades, and do some consulting
 on their use.  I advise people to think of tapes as reliable for
 five to ten years, and to mount them at least twice a year to
 optimize their tensioning.  I have had only two tapes actually
 go bye-bye on me, in neither case with the loss (due to
 unrecoverable read errors) of more than a record or two, and I
 have several tapes which have lasted far beyond the five-to-ten-year
 range.  So I'd recommend as a conservative policy:
 (1) always have a backup tape, i.e. a pair of tapes with identical
     contents for every collection of data.
 (2) keep them hanging vertically (to avoid edge damage) in a
     dust-free environment with controlled temperature and humidity.
 (3) at least mount and check them every six months.
 (4) be alert for recoverable read errors, and if they recur or
     seem to be increasing, replace the tape.
 (5) if you're a belt-and-suspenders man, or whatever the 
     gender-free equivalent is, replace any tape more than ten
     years old.