On Saturday 31 August 2002 07:45, Brian Jonnes wrote: >Hi, > >I think I have a faulty tape or two. What is the best recommended > way of testing this? Generate a file from /dev/urandom, write it > to the tape and md5sum it?
Most drives do the equ of that themselves. its when they can't recover the error that you become aware that its doing re-read after re-read and reporting a failure. > >Also, what is the expected lifetime for Travan 4 tapes (each used > once a week)? When should I retire them? My experience with TR4's is that they will usually outlast the drive. Thats not saying much, but we did have one in an NT system that probably accumulated in excess of 1500 passes (never changed the tape) when we retired the box it was in. 2 other TR4 drives failed, one of them ripping the tapes in two violently, in less than a year. So generally speaking, TR4's aren't any more, or less dependable than a DDS2, but the DDSx format is slowly pulling ahead in my personal tally sheets. Plus the DDS2 tapes are beaucoup cheaper... -- Cheers, Gene AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M Athlon1600XP@1400mhz 512M 99.13% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
