HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Care and Handling of Tapes An important part of using tapes correctly is to follow the maintenance procedures outlined in the documentation supplied with the equipment. Tape drives should be handled with care and used under the proper environmental conditions. Guidelines for the use of magnetic tapes are discussed below. Magnetic Tapes The reliability of data stored on magnetic tapes is affected by environmental conditions. Tape heads, since they are exposed to particles of dust and smoke in the air most of the time, should be cleaned after every eight hours of use. Like disk packs, it is a good idea to store magnetic tapes in cabinets. They should be stored vertically, away from operating disk drives because of the magnetic field a disk drive generates. Arrange the storage area so that the tapes do not contact any magnetic material (even magnetic latches on cabinets), since any magnetic field greater than 50 amperes per meter can destroy information on the tape. To reduce read errors, plan the storage area so that extremes of temperature and humidity are avoided. If this cannot be done, you must bring tapes to computer-room temperature 4 to 16 hours before use. This is referring to the handling of acetate and polyester tapes: they must always be maintained at the same temperature as the computer system room.