Using old C7978A labelled as good to LTO-1 to LTO-3 in later drives

[David C Partridge]

I have a number of older C7978A cleaning cartridges which the packaging says can be used for Ultrium 1, 2 and 3 drives.

Can these in fact be used on later tape drives (Ultrium 4, 5, 6, 7)?.. If so what is the highest LTO-n format these can safely be used with and how many cleans are they good for?

Many thanks
Dave

[Torsten.]

according to some google hits at the hpe.com site C7978A  is for all LTO drives (1-7) and made for 15-50 cleans.

[Curtis_Ballard]

Torsten is correct - that part number is for the Universal LTO cleaning tapes good for all vendors LTO drives and all generations so far and at least a couple more to come.

There is one really old cleaning tape that was only good for HPE tape drives and early generations of those but they are really rare now having not been made for many years. The part number is remarkably close though - C7979A usually called a "Legacy Cleaning Tape" won't work with recent tape drives.