Damaged LTO tapes

[Aaron Taylor]

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