Damaged LTO tapes

[Zane Healy]

> On May 24, 2019, at 8:28 PM, Aaron Taylor <ataylor at subgeniuskitty.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, May 24, 2019 at 02:29:09PM -0700, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
>> Anyone have any experience on how hard it is to damage an LTO tape.  I mean
>> damage them to the point they split at the seam.
> 
> I've abused some LTO tapes pretty badly but never managed to split one open.
> 
> A tape library I purchased on eBay turned out to be full of 32 tapes. They all
> came loose in transit and bounced around inside. The impacts were enough to
> destroy both tape drives and the picker mechanism, as well as put some serious
> gouges in the interior of the library. Despite this, 31/32 tapes worked
> flawlessly and are still in use multiple years later, having passed through my
> backup system multiple times. The damaged tape just had a broken plastic hinge
> on the little door that flips open to expose the tape leader.
> 
> It's only a single data point (or is it 32? :-), so take it for what it's worth.
> 
> Aaron

Realistically that’s sort of what I’d expect from LTO tapes.  I’ve never abused them like I have abused SDLT tapes.  Mainly because I’ve never had the chance.  I know it’s amazingly hard to visibly damage SDLT tapes.

Zane