On Thu August 18 2005 3:18 pm, Mike McCarty wrote: > As I mentioned before, tape is very reliable. It has been shown to have > 20+ year retention. One gets "wear and tear" only when the tape actually > moves. For data archival purposes, this is effectively never. > Since I've spent over thirty years in the media sector, first sound engineering, and now television, I can't let this claim pass. You've repeated it as gospel. I'm sure there are some studies that would make your point, but, in real world conditions, I would never trust critical backups to tape. Even supposing a tape's data was intact after 20 years, what would be the state of the technology? What would you retrieve your data with? I've dealt with every format of tape there is. Even if it's stored properly, vertically, not horizontal on the spool, in temperature and climate controlled conditions, there is a wide disparity in tape longevity. BetaSP tapes that cost us $60+ when purchased new, will vary widely in their playability even after ten years. Older 3/4" stuff is deteriorating rapidly in our archive, and we're in a rush to transfer mode lately, to get the material off them and on to newer media. The machines that will play this stuff are also getting harder and harder to maintain, and find parts for. I've encountered many horror stories about computer tape backups as well. Meticulously done, perfectly stored, and tape drives kept up to spec, may succeed in the 20-year life you speak of, but those conditions are almost never met in the real world. If you have the staff to maintain the stuff, the equipment to be maintained, the climate controlled storage environment, along with many other factors, you might get by with tape backup - I personally would only recommend tape as a secondary repository. -- Claude Jones Bluemont, VA, USA
