Re: DATs, Was Re: arsclist Duplicating casette tapes

[Jerome Hartke <jhartke@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James Perrett wrote:
> 
> Language Laboratories and Archives wrote:
> 
> > Do you have any specifics or sources for the anecdotal reports? I am
> > interested because we are doing our archiving to DAT--given that the
> > shelf-life of CDs, and therefore, presumably, DVDs is really an
> > unknown.
> >
> > Barbara
> 
> I notice that
> http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/products/automatedbackup/pdfs/autoloaders/faqs/NIL002AQV.html#faq14
> talks about a life of 10 years for DDS DAT's. I have also seen this
> quoted on manufacturers DAT tape specifications.
> 
> HHB are quoting 30 years life for their DAT tapes while they predict 200
> years archival life on their CD-R's (which I believe are made by
> Mitsui). The web address for their media brochure which contains the
> predicted lifetimes is:
> http://www.hhb.co.uk/FMPro?-db=hhbbrochures.fp5&-format=1brochpdf.htm&-sortfield=Title&Publication=Manual&Section=UK&-max=2147483647&-recid=7&-find=
> 
> I'm new on this list so I would guess that these media issues have been
> discussed already, but it would be interesting to know what error rates
> CD-R's from 10 years ago are showing compared to similar DAT's.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> James.

Media Sciences tested helical scan 4 mm and 8 mm DAT tapes for several
years. We noticed that repeated passes over the tape resulted in debris
pileup and dropouts at the beginning and end of each pass. Heads
attached to the rotating drum not only contact the tape but locally
deform the tape in order to avoid high frequency gap losses. This would
not be an issue for write-once archiving but is important if such tapes
are rewritten.

Jerry
Media Sciences, Inc.


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