We want to erase about 140 DLT tapes. Some posts on the internet indicated that
degaussing them renders them useless while some followup posts indicated that
they can be reused. I believe the latter is true.
Unfortunately, all three Dell PowerVault 120T drives that we own failed before I
could get our tapes erased. I don't think I can convince myself to send them to
Sprague Magnetics (http://www.sprague-magnetics.com/dlttcert.htm) for erasing.
Does anyone have tape erasing equipment powerful enough for DLT tapes?
Cyclotron Lab? Computer Center? I called the MSU Surplus Store and they don't
offer a service to erase tapes. They can destroy them, but do not erase them.
According to a Quantum product document I found
(http://downloads.quantum.com/dlt4000/dlt4000productmanual.pdf) the equipment
needs to have a magnetic field strength of 2000 Oersted to be sufficient to
erase DLT.
-Stefan
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