Tape media disposal has been an issue for IT Managers for decades. Whether you have old 1/2" reel, QIC 1/4" cartridges, 8mm AIT, DLT, or relatively NEW SuperDLT or LTO media, the problem is the same. How do I get rid of this stuff while protecting my company's data and the environment?
The problem for today's IT departments is even more difficult than ever before for many reasons including; regulatory requirements, privacy concerns, environmental and technological difficulties.
Regulatory: Depending on your industry there are numerous regulations on protecting sensitive data including:
- Healthcare - The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- Corporate - The Sarbanes-Oxley Act
- Financial - The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB)
- Consumer - Numerous Consumer Protection Acts by State and Federal regulations
- Government - Department of Defense 5220 Standards
Privacy: Social security numbers, credit card numbers, financial statements, designs, plans, the list can almost continue forever. Data stored on backup tapes is typically confidential. Nobody wants to be the next news story about a lost backup tape with millions of credit cards on it...
Environmental Impact: With billions of tape media cartridges in circulation it isn't environmentally sustainable to simply throw them in the trash. The best option is to delete the data from the tape, then recycle the tape for reuse as a tape again. Many tape types have decades of useful life and include lifetime warranties. They are made to last.
Alternatively for very old media types that are no longer used by anyone (e.g. 1/2" reel-to-reel) the tapes are typically shredded and recycled.
Either of these options is much better than simply adding to a landfill.
Technological issues: Erasing used to be easy. Degaussing (the use of a magnetic field to erase the data) was the way. You'd simply place the tapes on a strong magnet and the data was gone. Today though, tape densities are over 10,000 times denser than they were just 15 years ago. With tape media advancements such as Advanced Metal Evaporated and carbon-coated films a simple magnet doesn't do anything. Short of spending literally hours erasing the tapes in your own tape drives creating wear and tear on your tape drives you need specialized equipment to completely remove data from tapes and even more advanced equipment to completely erase the data and reinitialize the tape for reuse. Outsourcing this service that can be done in minutes per tape, not hours, is the best method economically (because you can reuse or sell these tapes) and environmentally to reduce landfill deposits.
In Closing: If you have old tapes, whether it's 10 or 10,000, we have partnered with one of the nations largest tape recycling companies to provide the services mentioned to help you safely recycle and/or dispose of your unwanted tape media. For many media types you can even get money back. For more information please click on the link below.
Find out more about Tape Recycling
