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Optimizing digital 8mm drive performanceThe experience of attaching over 350,000 digital 8mm drives to 85-plus system platforms has uncovered many factors which can reduce cartridge capacity or drive throughput, reduce reliability, affect cartridge archivability and actually shorten drive life. Some are unique to an installation. Others result from how the system is set up to talk to the drive. Many stem from how applications use the drive, the work load that's present, the kind of media used and, very important, the kind of cleaning program in place. Digital 8mm drives record data at densities that rival those of disk technology. Even with technology this advanced, they are extremely robust and, given proper usage, care and media, should reward the user with a long productive life. The 8mm drive will give its best performance using high-quality 'data grade' media. Even though it costs more, good 'data grade' media can sustain the reliability and rigorous needs of a data storage environment and, with proper care, give users an archival life of 30 years or more. Various factors, taken individually, may not necessarily produce performance or reliability problems. Taken in combination, their effects can compound, resulting in rapid reductions in a drive's serviceable life, cartridge capacity, or drive performance. The key to managing media is determining the importance one places upon their recorded data and, subsequently, setting media usage guidelines that can deliver data reliability. Various options one can implement to optimize digital 8mm drive performance are explored.
Document ID
19930021290
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Schadegg, Gerry
(Exabyte Corp. Boulder, CO, United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1993
Publication Information
Publication: NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center, Goddard Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies, Volume 1,
Subject Category
Instrumentation And Photography
Accession Number
93N30479
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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