Need for Tape Media Protection
When you are backing up your data to the tape media, you are going to rely on it in case of a catastrophe. Its a no brainer that this media itself though rugged needs to be protected when it is in transit and where it is permanently stored.
During transit between branch offices or from production site to offsite storage, it may be subjected to vibrations, fall, temperature extremes, humidity and static all of which are bad for the tape media and a good carry case can shield your media from all this. Further the cases are lockable for added security and they make handling your media extremely easy, fast and efficient.
Storage of the Tape media also has to be in a waterproof and fireproof safe within a climate controlled environment. The most overlooked area in tape storage is the fireproofing. A Fireproof and waterprof safe specifically designed to store tape media should be used for this purpose.
Turtle Cases for Protection in transit
Turtle has been manufacturing rugged, heavy duty purpose built cases for data tapes and hard drives since 1998. They are designed to protect the media from Impact, Debris and temperature/humidity extremeties. Apart from their Internal temperature and drop tests, turtle has been tested by Fuji Film and certified that Turtle Cases protect data without loss when LTO tapes are stored and shipped.Turtle is manufactured exclusively in USA and has become the most popular brand of carry cases.
There are more than 100 cases available in turtle for tapes, hard drives, laptops and flash drives, but there are mainly 3 kinds of slotting available in turtle
- Plastic Molded Slots which are fixed in size and securely hold the media in place, separate from each other . For example an LTO tape case will hard molded slots for LTO tapes, and you can't fit any other tape. Advantage of plastic molded slot is that there is no exposed foam and debris inside the box. However this can only be used for the media its specified for
- Foam Slots are not fixed in size. They have cuts which can be utilized to accommodate a number of different medias. Foam is antistatic and shock absorbing.
- Foam Slots which are laser cut to media size
Waterproof cases use a gasketed design that delivers an airtight, dustproof and waterproof interior.
None of the portable carry cases are fireproof. Fireproofing a case needs a thick wall of steel which makes it impossible to have a portable Fireproof carry case. To put it in perspective, the smallest fireproof safe we have weights 50 kilos and carries 14 LTO tapes !
DataCare Fireproof/ Waterproof safes for protection on storage site
Site of the data storage media should have a fireproof and waterproof storage . The fireproof which are designed to protect Data Storage media from fire have to comply with a standard called Class 125. A product complying with Class 125 guarantees that the media stored will be protected for a period of time ( typically 1 to 2 hours) at a specific temperature ( usually over 1800 degree F). How the safe achieves this is with thermal insulation where the temperature inside the safe doesn't exceed the permissible limit during the period its set to protect.
The Standards that standard documents safe comply with are not so stringent as Class 125.
DataCare and DataCommander safes that we sell are designed to protect your Data Storage media for specified time during a fire.
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