LTO Drive head life

[DiskBytes]

Hello, in the L&TT drive assessment test, when it reports the drive head having 99% or 89% life remaining, in general, I wonder how much work must the drive do to lose for example 1% of life or 10% of life?

Thanks.

[Sahana_S]

Hello @DiskBytes ,

• Read/Write (%Life Remaining) — the expected read/write life remaining of the tape, shown as a percentage of the expected life, assuming HP recommended environmental conditions and usage. This is based on the amount of tape that has passed over the drive heads, and compared with HP recommended tape usage limits. If the read/write life reaches 0%, the tape should be retired.

• Load/Unload (%Life Remaining) — the expected load/unload life remaining of the tape shown as a percentage of the expected life, based on HP recommended environmental conditions and usage. This is based on the load/unload count of the tape and compared with HP recommended tape usage limits. If the load/unload life reaches 0%, the tape should be retired.

Ultrium media is certified for 1 million passes or 260 full back ups and has a 30-year archival storage life.

For more information please refer to this link, hope this helps!

Thanks,
Sahana S

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[sbhat09]

Hello @DiskBytes,

First, I appreciate this question. Many people have this in mind, but not asked.!

Typically an LTO drive lifespan is upto 10,000 cycles of load/unload. ( A load/unload cycle is one complete tape read/write)
So, 10% is around 1000 tape cycles.

However, the lifespan is influenced by the factors like:
Temperature and humudity where you store tape and LTO drives.
Excessive rewriting on the same tapes.
Dust accumulation on tapes media.
Timely cleaning of drive (but avoid over cleaning).
Proper handling on the system and media.

For increased drive lifespan, plan your backups efficiently, use compression. Usage of same LTO version of tape helps to reduce the load/unload cycles as you can write maximum amount of data in a single tape.

By following all the recommendations, you can achieve better lifespan of the drive.

Regards,
Srinivas Bhat

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Note: All of my comments are my own and are not any official representation of HPE.

[DiskBytes]

If 10% is around 1000 tapes, then I shouldn't have anything to worry about. Thankyou for the information,

[sbhat09]

Yes @DiskBytes.

But this is just an approximate number. Please keep checking the drive margin after every 200-300 tape cycles to be more realistic about it.

Regards,
Srinivas Bhat

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[support_s]

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