9-track tape reuse

[John Stephens]

We are in the process of phasing a couple of Plexus boxes out of
circulation and now have a fairly large number of tapes which have
been used for incremental backups in the past and are available
for re-use.  My question: is this a good idea ?

I know that ATT used a count of 5000 when formatting cartridge tapes
under the sysadm package.  Is this a reasonable number ?  It seems high.

What sort of experience have people had with cleaning and re-using 9
tracks ?  Do you recommend it ?  Do you have a preferred vendor of
cleaning services ?

Thanks for any input.  I will post a summary if I get an feedback.

jms

-- 
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| Jack Stephens      ..!{uunet|pyramid}!infmx!jms --or-- ..!jack!wzlr!jms |
| Systems Programmer "Into the valley of Death rode the 600...            |
| Informix Software      which allowed them to use the carpool lane."     |