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Checking the media (backup tapes) health
Hi guys,
Lately we are experenicing technical difficultes with our backup system, I am suspecting that the media (backup tapes ) get damaged or affected by radiation.
Is there a way in legato networker or using any third party tools to check the media health?
Many thanks
ble1
14.3K Posts
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April 2nd, 2011 13:00
You could try to read the tape with scanner with -n switch which would not write any data to check it out. When it comes to radiation, I could not find reliable sources or test results carried to see what implications or threshold are there. It is known that EMP can affect it indirectly, but that's due to magnetic field change in properties of tape drive head and that's not radiation. The only way to test it is to read it from start to the end and scanner is the way to go.
DavidHampson-rY
294 Posts
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April 2nd, 2011 14:00
Hi Jihad
What kind of radiation do you expect to have caused corruption and what kind of exposure have the media had? What effects have you seen that has caused you to suspect this? You can always use scanner to verify the tape but the easiest test is normally to try and recover some data.
Polska1422
128 Posts
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April 4th, 2011 07:00
Hi Jihad,
Some tape manufacturers (i.e. Imation) has a HW/SW tool to read the memory of the cartridges (like LTO), which contain valuable info about tape health. Unfortunately, if the damage toke place after the last tape access, they will not appear in memory. Contact your tape provider about this kind of tool.
Regards
Claudio