Bruce writes:
> I have wondered about this. To what extent is the ability to read foreign
> DDS tapes an indication that a given drive is within spec? I have three
> different DDS drives on three different systems (HP 3000, UNIX and Mac/PC
> network); I can't very well afford to buy three more of the same. And I
> can't very well afford to lose my data, either.
>
> Is there some kind of interoperability check that could be done at
> regular intervals? How much good does it do to periodically verify the
> readability of the oldest tapes in the library?

You can probably get away with using dd or something like that on the
UNIX system to verify the readability of the tapes created on the MPE
and Mac/PC systems.  You may be able to use tar or :FCOPY to try reading
the UNIX and PC tapes on the 3000.

Generally the problems we've seen show up as an inability to read the
data at all, rather than reading invalid data, so if you can get data
off the tape without read errors you're probably ok, even if the system
you're reading the tape on can't actually understand what's on the tape.

G.