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It must never be left in a car window, where sunshine can rapidly heat the air, and never left
in a car overnight.
It should be noted that airport-style metal detectors and hand held scanners will not affect
the data stored on the 8 mm tape.
8mm Data Cartridge should be stored vertically and in the supplied case.
Recommended Operating Environment:
– 5 C to 40 C
– Relative Humidity 20% to 80% non condensing
– Max Wet Bulb to 26 C
Recommended Storage Environment:
– Temperature 15 C to 25 C
– Relative Humidity 40% to 60% non condensing
Note: Before using a data cartridge, allow it to acclimate to the operating environment (24
hours or the amount of time it has been exposed to dissimilar conditions).
Archive Life
If proper storage conditions are maintained, quality 8 mm tapes can have a recorded data
archive life of over 30 years:
Use tapes with 4 to 20 passes on them. In the first few passes, new tapes shake off or
shed excess magnetic media and binder deposited during the tape manufacturing
process. These can result in higher soft error rates during the first few passes.
Pre-condition the tapes:
– Write/Read tape to measure error statistics (from LBOT to LEOT)
– Do this a minimum of 4 passes and a maximum of 20 passes
– Do this on a known good drive
– Physically examine tape pack winding for quality wind
– Use only tapes that have temperature stabilized.
Maintain constant environment:
– Best environment is 18 C (65 F) at 40% RH
– Control environment while transporting tapes
– Ensure no chemical conditions exist
– No dust
– Have positive pressure air.
Long Time Archiving Conditions:
– 5 C to 32 C
– 20% to 60% RH (non condensing)
– Wet bulb 26 C maximum
Local Archiving Conditions Range:
– 18 C to 40 C
– 40% to 60% RH (non condensing)
Store on edge in their protective enclosures and don't stack anything on top of them.
2-22
Operator Guide
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