Re: [ARSCLIST] Longevity of data tape?--

[Ken Hansen <k.hansen.1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I also would never trust DATA backup for longer than 5 years.
The past two places I worked I found this out the hard way.
Trying to restore 5 and 8 years old data respectively yielded horrible
results.
We then implemented a policy to have all Data tapes checked and re
backed up to new AIT tapes with the understanding that those tapes
would then be checked in 5 years time.

-Ken

On Jun 9, 2005, at 3:47 PM, John Spencer wrote:

> This is an incorrect statement.  There are various backup
> applications that will skip a bad block of data and continue the
> restore process, as well as applications that will report on the
> quality of the data archive as it is being written.  Error correction
> is not a function of the data storage tape itself.
>
> And I would never trust a data storage tape to be readable 25-30
> years from now.
>
> John
> John Spencer
> www.bridgemediasolutions.com
>
>
> On Jun 9, 2005, at 2:36 PM, Jeffrey Kane wrote:
>
> > I've seen the figure 25-30 years bandied about for data tape. Data
> > backups
> > are a double edge sword. They have better error correction so the
> > data is
> > more resilient. However, if there's an unrecoverable error it
> > renders ALL
> > data for that particular file (and if it's in the directory area,
> > all data
> > on the tape) unrecoverable. With digital audio tape the error only
> > affects
> > that portion of the recording.