Exabyte tape oxidation problem ?? [v8n133]

[Preston Mullen]

> I'm suspecting that putting the tape inside the drive for more than a few
> days would cause oxidation problem on the tape.
> ...
> after several nights -- I always got this type of errors :-
> ...
>   DUMP: write: I/O error
>   DUMP: Tape write error 5 feet into tape 1
> 
> Sep 21 02:04:20 cognito vmunix: xb0: SCSI device error cs=c0<CC,ERR> ss=0x2 (check condition) ds=404<TME> (hardware error)

I think you should suspect something else.  I've often appended daily
incremental dumps to the same tape for two or three weeks -- once for more
than three months -- without ever seeing that problem.  I used the same
stock Sony tape and never cleaned the heads.

Of course, to reduce the likelihood of losing both your disk and your last
few weeks of work at one stroke, you should change the tapes more
frequently and move the old tapes to a safe place, whether they are full
or not.  But it's nice to have something that will keep working anyway.

	Preston Mullen
	Naval Research Laboratory