OpenStorage, Distributor of Spectra Logic, Presents Certified Tape Media

Spectra Logic Corporation builds some of the industry’s most economical, rugged and reliable tape systems, including the Spectra Stack Tape Library.

In addition, Spectra offer certified tape media for the most effective operation of its tape libraries. Spectra Certified Media undergoes an inspection and verification process to ensure that it is the highest possible grade of tape media. It is so confident of the reliability of its certified media that it offers customers a lifetime guarantee.

Debris in tape media can result from even the most careful manufacturing process, administrative media handling and environmental contamination. As new generations of tape reach ever-greater capacities, the distance shrinks both between tracks on the tape and between the drive head and physical media. This means that debris too tiny to create problems in earlier generations may now pose a threat.

Spectra offers CarbideClean, a process only available with Spectra Certified Media. From manufacturer selection to certification to packaging to customer shipment, every step of the Spectra Certified Media process is designed to ensure the most reliable automated tape storage available. Through its media certification process, all Spectra Certified Media must be completely free of magnetic debris and contamination before shipment to the customer. This detailed process is done through an orderly method of inspection, cleaning and verification of each piece of media to ensure that its quality can withstand the rigors of backup and archival storage in a tape library.

Spectra Certified Media Process: 

• Media arrives at Spectra’s facility
• Media is placed in a climate-controlled certified media room for 24 hours to acclimate
• Media is barcoded and inserted into a tape library
• The CarbideClean process is run on each piece of media
• Each tape is loaded into a special cleaner drive to remove all debris and contamination
• Cleaned tape is then loaded into a verifying drive (same generation as the media) and run through the drive end-to-end to verify, check ECC and launch Media Lifecycle Management (MLM) recording of the tape
• MLM tracks the health of the media via the tape library throughout the media’s lifespan
• Certified media is packed and shipped to customer
• Spectra provides a lifetime warranty with every certified media purchase warranting that its certified tapes will be free from defects in materials and workmanship for the life of the media

Better Reliability through MLM
MLM ensures the safety of data by providing continuous assessments on more than 40 different metrics throughout the life of each tape. Detailed reporting mitigates media problems and restore issues, allowing users to copy and move data onto new tapes before degraded media impacts the data.

Data Integrity Verification
Spectra Certified Media assures data integrity using an integrated, intelligent set of Data Integrity Verification (DIV) tools when integrated with Spectra tape libraries. PreScan verifies tapes are safe prior to usage and QuickScan and FullScan verify data has been properly written to tape over the lifetime of the media.

With Spectra Certified Media, customers are assured of using the highest quality tape media in the industry.