Manage the tape

[heaman1]

I have a tape drive that attached to the server , I use mt command could manage it , tar command to write data to it , could advise if I want to format the tape , or erase the data in the tape , what can i do ? thx

[Dennis Handly · Accepted solution]

Typically you can only overwrite the data that is already there or degauss it.

[Matti_Kurkela]

To destroy the old data on the tape without putting in any meaningful new data, there are several options:

Overwrite with zero bytes:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ bs=10240

Overwrite with random bytes (slower):

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/ bs=10240

Adjust the bs= (blocksize) parameter to match the preferred block size of your tape drive type.

But if you have a magnetic tape degausser device, just put the tape in/on the degausser device and switch it on. The strong magnetic field will erase the data from the entire tape all at once. This is the fastest way to erase all data from a tape.

MK