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Questions tagged [tape]

60 questions
37
votes
9 answers

How can I read a reel-to-reel tape from the 1970s?

A close friend of my mother worked at DEC in the 1970s and 1980s. She recently passed away, and in sorting through her estate, my mother discovered some reel-to-reel magnetic tape. We are curious about what might be on it. I haven't yet seen a…
user35138
13
votes
3 answers

Filetype ".bak" starts with "TAPE"

I realize this isn't strictly a programming question, but I have a file with the extension .bak, and the file starts with "TAPE". What program produced this?
unknown (google)
9
votes
3 answers

What Tape Drive Format are you using for backup?

I like the benefit of tape in that you get permanent snapshots of data at a given point in time, but popular business tape backup i.e. LTO is still expensive. So if you are using tape for backups at home/small business what did you go with and why?
atom255
  • 1,002
8
votes
1 answer

How to access files stored on tape drive?

Helping a friend with accessing an old backup file (circa 2000) of some ProTools sessions provided by a recording studio on DAT-style data tapes. He has the tapes, and a Seagate STD 124000N SCSI tape drive which accepts them. After sorting out a…
Derek Hogue
  • 181
5
votes
3 answers

Tape backups on audio-cassette tape?

I know that there are tape backup systems available. I do not know how they work. Can I use an audio tape recorder and audio tapes (like the 60/90 minute kind) and backup data somehow? (Pardon my n00bness, I've never done tape backups before.)
J Diggs
  • 51
  • 1
  • 2
5
votes
7 answers

Convert a cassette tape recording to digital format

Has anyone been successful with transferring audio cassette tape recordings to a digital format? I would like to preserve old cassette tape recordings of my grandparents to some digital format: MP3, WAV, etc... The quality of the tapes are…
Taptronic
  • 1,121
5
votes
1 answer

LTO-5 systems compatible with Mac OS X Server

I am looking to implement an LTO-5 tape backup system on a currently shipping Mac OS X Server (10.6.7) tower (PCI Express Card compatible). This backup system would be used only to offload data for long term storage to free up space for current…
Manca Weeks
  • 161
5
votes
1 answer

How to get an SAS LTO-4 drive to work on a normal PC?

I got a cheap Tandberg LTO-4 tape drive and I would like to use it on my normal, Windows 10/Ubuntu PC for data backups. I tried a SAS SFF-8482 to SATA adapter, but later found out, that this only works with a SATA Motherboard. I'm using this one…
Andreas Hartmann
  • 1,502
4
votes
1 answer

How to read an dar archive via LTO-6 tape

The /data folder was saved on tape with dar -R /data/ -c - | mbuffer -R 110M -P 90 -m 1G | dd of=/dev/nst0 bs=256k How can I test, list and extract it? I tried the following to test the archive without luck: # mt -f /dev/nst0 status SCSI 2 tape…
Jonas Stein
  • 1,182
4
votes
1 answer

Maximize tape lifespan best practice?

What is best practice to maximize tape lifespan: Append backups to the tape until it becomes full, then overwrite it before the next usage. or Overwrite the tape before it becomes full (for example: when used space is 70% or every month even it's…
eng
  • 163
4
votes
2 answers

Are tape archives still used?

In this blog post, Raymond Chen makes a reference to files being on a tape archive. Are tape archives still supported by windows and/or used?
RCIX
  • 5,855
4
votes
5 answers

How can I make an actual compact cassette "tape" mix-tape from iTunes?

I want to make an actual compact cassette mix-tape as a gift for someone. I use iTunes to manage all of my music. So a few questions: If I gather a bunch of songs on a playlist for sides A/B of the tape, how can I ensure that the volume for all…
MikeN
  • 1,064
4
votes
2 answers

How to backup MiniDV tapes?

I would like to backup my MiniDV tapes using the FireWire port in a raw format (byte for byte) to avoid any degradation in quality. What (preferably open source) software would you recommend for Vista Basic? Also, is there a standard file format?
mr-euro
  • 491
4
votes
3 answers

Converting hundreds of tapes to MP3

I know that devices exist which can convert cassette tapes into MP3s via USB. I have hundreds of tapes which I'd like to convert. Are there any devices which can do this in a batch style - i.e. put in multiple cassettes, start it running, and come…
Calum
  • 303
3
votes
1 answer

How to unpack an OpenVMS tape image?

I have a file that seems to have come from a DECUS tape on an OpenVMS system by way of non-VMS systems using FTP which means that VMS specific file attributes have likely been lost on the way. The contents refers to a backup file name but it is not…
CW Holeman II
  • 2,150
1
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