VXA Tapes... chuck 'em?

[spark_creative]

I have two backup sets... A and B which alternate every other week. (Full backups on the weekends, incremental during the week). Each set currently has three tapes of which the second and third tapes see the most action as they are appended during the week.

 

I figure my tape life is probably six rotations, which is about three months for both sets.

 

So, would it be taboo to then use those tapes as permenant archive tapes IF there are no errors when writing the archival copy or should I just chuck 'em?

 

Yes, the tapes are relatively cheap in terms of how much they cost vs how much it would cost to replace lost data, but it's still an expense for a pack of 10 tapes that I'd like to try and minimize if possible.

 

JL

[natew]

Hi

 

Retrospect does a write and a verify on the tape so if you get no errors you can assume the tapes are good.

 

Tapes can fail just sitting in the closet but that is rare with VXA. I think you are find using them as an archive.

 

Thanks

Nate

[rhwalker]

If they wrote OK on the final archive pass, I think you will be fine for two reasons: (1) the long-term failure mechanism that I have seen discussed (as contrasted with the "worn-out tape from overuse" mechanism) is that the tape substrate itself becomes brittle and breaks, or that the bonding of the oxide to the substrate weakens, and this seems to be an aging issue, not a wear issue. (2) you've got two backup sets with roughly the same information. Sure, you won't be able to get that changed file on the last day of your last rotation if that tape breaks, but that's fairly low risk.

 

Also, at least from the white papers on the Exabyte site, there is a lot of error correction capability in the VXA technology, and the bits are distributed over a region. Failure of a few bits in one area doesn't prevent recovery. But we've all known a bit of puffery from marketing types....

 

Regards, Russ