Appendix A — Best Practices Using Cartridges
December 2019 User Guide—Spectra T200, T380, and T680 Libraries
516
Handling Cartridges
Incorrect handling or an incorrect environment can damage the LTO
cartridge or the magnetic tape inside it. To avoid damage to your
cartridges and to ensure the continued high reliability of your drives, use
the following guidelines:
Do not drop the cartridge. If the cartridge drops, slide the cartridge
door back and ensure that the leader pin is properly seated in the pin-
retaining spring clips. Inspect the rear of the cartridge (the part that you
load into the tape drive first) and ensure that there are no gaps in the
seam of the cartridge case.
Do not open any part of the cartridge other than the cartridge door. Do
not open any other part of the cartridge case. The upper and lower
parts of the case are held together with screws; separating them
destroys the usefulness of the cartridge.
Do not handle tape that is outside of the cartridge. Handling the tape
can damage the tape’s surface or edges, which may interfere with read
or write reliability. Pulling on tape that is outside of the cartridge can
damage the tape and the brake mechanism in the cartridge.
If tape is outside of the cartridge, slide the cartridge door back and turn
the hub to gently spool the tape back into the cartridge. Test the tape by
using your storage management software to write to the tape, and then
run a PostScan.
Before you use a cartridge, let it acclimate for at least 24 hours to the
normal operating environment.
Ensure that all surfaces of a cartridge are dry before inserting it into a
magazine.
Do not stack more than six cartridges.
Do not expose the tape cartridge to moisture or direct sunlight.
Do not degauss a tape cartridge that you intend to use/reuse.
Degaussing makes the tape unusable.
Do not expose recorded or blank tape cartridges to stray magnetic
fields (such as terminals, motors, video equipment, X-ray equipment,
or high-current cables or power supplies). Such exposure can cause the
loss of recorded data or make the blank cartridge unusable.
Maintain the environmental conditions specified in Tape Media
Specifications on page 548.
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