Link to home
Create AccountLog in
Storage Software

Storage Software

--

Questions

--

Followers

Top Experts

Avatar of 6129973 6129973
6129973 6129973🇦🇺

Duty Cycle or Life Span of a Tape Backup Drive
Hi,

I am trying to get some hard, factual information, that I can use to accurately estimate the Life Span of DLT and LTO Tape Backup Drives. Importantly, I am talking about the life span of the actual physical Backup Drive and NOT the tape media used in the drive.

My research thus far has given me the following factors to consider:

Factor 1: LTO Tape Drive life span is 260 Complete Backups (where the backup completely fills the Tape, based on full daily backup, every week per year, 5 times per week, the life-span is 1 Year only.
Factor 2:MTBF - 250,000 power on hours for LTO Drive (irrelevant, life span on this factor is 10+ years)
Factor 3: Head Life - 60,000 hour on LTO Drive (irrelevant, life span again exceeds five years and tape drives typically replaced by then)

Multiple internet sources have mentioned the 260 Complete Backups as the primary measure to a Tape Drives life span (until problems can begin), however Tape Drive Warranty's are typically 3 years.

Separately during my professional experience, I have witness Tape Drives fail within 1 - 4 Year periods consistently.

I would greatly appreciate feedback with links to factual research and data on this topic. If you have specific measures you use to estimate the life span, I would appreciate an explanation on the calculation used to arrive at the lifespan for that measure.

Thanks.



Zero AI Policy

We believe in human intelligence. Our moderation policy strictly prohibits the use of LLM content in our Q&A threads.

SOLUTION
Avatar of Member_2_231077Member_2_231077

Link to home
membership
Log in or create a free account to see answer.
Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.
Create Account
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Gerald ConnollyGerald Connolly🇦🇺

Link to home
membership
Log in or create a free account to see answer.
Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.
Create Account
Avatar of 6129973 61299736129973 6129973🇦🇺

ASKER

Agree with you both, further research is showing me the same conclusion.

Do either of you know what the acronyms "MTBF" and "MSBS" mean?
Avatar of Member_2_231077Member_2_231077

MTBF - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures

MSBS is a typo (by quantum, not you) should be MCBF or MSBF, Mean Cycles Between Failure
Reward 1Reward 2Reward 3Reward 4Reward 5Reward 6

EARN REWARDS FOR ASKING, ANSWERING, AND MORE.

Earn free swag for participating on the platform.

Storage Software

Storage Software

--

Questions

--

Followers

Top Experts

The term "Backup" means the methods and processes involved to copy computer data (system data as well as application data) to media other than the ones where the data originally live (disk, tape, optical, cloud). "Restore" in turn means the methods and processes involved in data recovery, i. e., bringing back copied computer data to their original location. Backup/Restore primarily serves as a means of protection against data loss, be it due to disaster, corruption or sabotage. It can also be used for recovering data from an earlier point in time and even for cloning machines or applications. There is a wide variety of backup/restore software available, from expensive commercial products to free or open source tools.