A major cause of tape back-up failure has proven to be the lack of adhering to regular cleaning schedules. Your 4mm DAT and 8mm Helical Scan Tape Drive is a highly sophisticated electromechanical peripheral requiring scheduled cleaning and maintenance. In many cases, cleaning and maintenance procedures are often forgotten and neglected because of the high reliability and performance of these devices. But the truth is, these devices need scheduled cleaning to ensure and maintain reliability. Below are money saving tips to help identify the symptoms of a drive requiring cleaning and the steps required to clean the drive.
Most DAT tape drive manufacturers recommend and approve certain brands of cleaning cartridges.
Regardless of what brand cartridge you choose, never rewind the cleaning cartridge and re-use it. This could cause head contamination and result in costly repairs. As in most cases, Audio DAT and Video cleaning cartridges should NOT be used. Use only certified cartridges to insure proper cleaning and to avoid damage to the drive. In most cases, the normal cleaning schedule ranges from approximately 10-25 hours of use depending on the environment.