Dat Tape's DDS3 and DDS4 Lifespan

[CA778307]

Does anyone know the lifespan of DDS tapes- I do have customers that usually after a year have to replace several DDS tapes in their tape rotation. This is through general use and in a son/grandfather tape rotation sequence. These tapes are stored in a fairly controlled environment as well, ie not stored on the dashboard of someone's vehicle.
I tried getting answers but have not gotten a solid answer.

[BR19682]

Hi there.
If these tapes are properly stored, you should be able to keep them more than a year.
If you have any specific questions, just email the makers ( Maxell, Fujitsu, Verbatim ).
They should be able to give the deatils about the tapes.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Mark Vollmers]

Brian-

I think that the best gauge of life is more in number of uses as opposed to time. Here is a link to a thread that has a couple points that should help answer your question. For us, a year probably wouldn't be unreasonable.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xcd9e854994d9d4118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html

Mark