More stuff to go...

[Zane H. Healy]

At 12:24 AM -0400 9/2/08, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
>On Monday 01 September 2008, Tom Peters wrote:
>>  At 06:21 PM 9/1/2008 -0400, you wrote:
>>  >I also have boxes upon boxes of (used and degaussed) DLT-4 media.
>>  > I'd like to get about $1/tape for that.
>>
>>  With the servo track erased by degaussing, aren't they doorstops? My
>>  understanding was that there is a timing track written at
>>  manufacture, and it can't be put back with a standard tape drive.
>>
>>  Inquiring minds want to know.
>
>Not on DLT.  DLT is serpentine, and without any servo track.  SuperDLT
>has an "optical" servo track, so it's also safe to degauss.
>
>In fact, to write to DLT media in at a different density than it was
>recorded at (eg, DLT4000 vs 7000 vs 8000), you have to degauss it
>first.

We used to regularly degauss DLT III and DLT IV media at work, with 
positive results.  IIRC, we also degaussed SDLT tapes.  The important 
thing is having a degausser capable of doing the job right.  At one 
point we had people that would degauss every tape prior to putting it 
in a tape library, now they only do select "problem" tapes.

Over the years we've chipped millions of dollars worth of used DLT 
and SDLT tapes as we upgraded to newer revisions. :^(  Though when 
possible we provide them to other groups in the company that are 
using the older drives.

Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
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