Tape has Reached End of Useful Life 1

[alintz]

Using ArcServe 6.5.
Two tapes in a set of 5 daily backup tapes produce the warning: Tape cartridge has reached the end of its useful life. The tapes are reformatted at each backup, and that resets the expiration date to 1 year from now. The tapes show no read or write errors, and restore without problems.

What determines when the "end of useful life "? Is it time based, or number of formats, total bytes written to the tape, or some other metric? Can I set the end of life to something else?

 

[speshalyst]

Normally, a tape which is used regularly will be good for about a year...

pls stop using these tapes beyond taht period as it might popup errors at the least expected time...

You can change the expiration date of the tape when formatting the media...

cheers
speshalyst So it Shall be Written!
So it Shall be Done!!

 

[Stacy12]

I have to say that is an amusing error. To bad we as humans did not have the same error pop up.

I wouldn't use a to tape more than a year of continous use.

 

[alintz]

I still don't have my answer. The tapes that produce the 'end of life' message have an expiration date of October 2003, so expiration date is not the trigger. But what is? I have erased tapes completely, then reformatted and the tape still produces the message.

I understand that 1 year of daily use is too much for any given tape. But for a monthly off-site backup tape that only is used for 12 backups per year, 1 year is not too much.

I just want to know what logic or settings are used in ArcServe to produce this message.

 

[Cyklops]

Here's what CA mentions about the useful live of media :

"A tape's life is generally based on "passes". A pass is defined as the tape drive head "passing" over a given point on the tape. For example, a backup without verification constitutes one pass and a backup with verification constitutes two passes.

Tape manufacturers rate their tapes' useful lives from about 500 to 1500 passes. This doesn't mean that the tape is unusable after it reaches the maximum number, just that it is more susceptible to errors at this point.

You should choose an expiration date based on how you will use the tape. If you plan to use the tape often, say, a few times a week, you should set the expiration date to a year from now, maybe even sooner than that. On the other hand, if you plan to use the tape only once or twice a month, you can set the expiration date to two or three years from the current date.

When a tape reaches its expiration date, you will still be able to use it, but when you make a backup, for example, a note is made in the Activity Log that this tape is expired.

The expiration date is a way of tracking how long a tape has been in service so you can stop using it before it reaches the end of its useful life".

I'm not too sure about this but I know lots of messages in ARCserve's activity log comes from communication with the tape device. Could it be that the tape drive notices that a maximum of passes on a tape is reached and forwards this information to ARCserve and it's activity log ??

regards

 

[alintz]

Thanks for the hint, Cyklops. You were right, the messages originate from firmware (not a driver) inside the HP T20 tape drive and get passed on to ArcServe. I still have no hard definition of the criteria that triggers the message, but I must track down HP to get it and leave this ArcServe group alone.