Maintaining The Device; Environmental Limits; Drive Life; Tape Life - HP A3542A User Manual

Maintaining the device

The device is designed to give years of trouble-free service. With regular maintenance, the drive should
produce consistent results with minimal errors. This tape drive is designed for best performance with HP
DDS-3 tapes. Case studies have shown that tape mechanism failures can be reduced by 80% using a strict
tape management and cleaning regimen.

Environmental limits

The performance and reliability of the drive depend on the operating environment. Be sure to operate the
drive within the environmental limits listed in the table of technical specifications located at the end of this
chapter.

Drive life

The lifespan of the tape drive can be significantly lengthened by keeping the tape drive streaming (keeping
the tape moving smoothly in one direction). This requires a sustained transfer rate of greater than 1 Mbyte/
second.
Minimizing repositions can extend both tape and mechanism life.

Tape life

A tape cartridge should be reliable for about 100 insertions for writing. When using the tape drive for
backups, it's valuable to keep a record of how many times the backup tapes are overwritten.
As the backup set reaches about 100 uses, replace the tapes with new tapes. The old tapes can still be used
reliably for read-only operations, but they should no longer be used for writing.
3-2 A3542A DDS-3 Tape Drive User's Guide