Round Reel Revolution

By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Associate Director of Academic Computing

Hitachi Data Systems has dropped all support for the old 9-track round reel mainframe tape drives effective September 1, 1999. This means that beyond that date, Computing Center Mainframe Operations will no longer be able to get those drives serviced, should they break. Effectively, this means that we cannot ensure the ability to read a 9-track tape on our academic mainframe beyond September 1.

It has been about 5 years since the round reel tape drives have been in regular use. During that time, newly written tapes have used the newer cartridge technology format. If for some reason, you have data on round reel tape which must be converted to an alternate format, now is the time to consult with Academic Computing Services personnel. Research and Statistical Support Services staff (565-2324) will be glad to advise you in this regard.

Please be aware of the following in regard to reading round reel tapes:

Because the media on old round reel tapes has proven unreliable, there is no guaranty that data can be successfully read from old tapes.
Copying data from tapes requires your consultation and involvement, because the format of the data is not evident from the data set names on tape.
ACS will provide consultation services, but we will not be responsible for copy data from any personally held round reel tape internal or external to our tape library. If you wish such data to be preserved, it is your responsibility to perform any data copying. As a courtesy, active faculty academic mainframe users with tapes in the mainframe round reel library, will receive a message to their mainframe user-ID listing the tapes and number of data sets (this is less than 35 people). If you don't receive such a message, then you do not have round reel tapes held in the Mainframe tape library. Please remember that even if the data was previously copied to a cartridge tape, the original round reel tape may still be in the library because of it was initially written without an expiration date.

If you have further questions, please contact ACS Research and Statistical Support (Karl, Rich, or Craig) via the Computing Center helpdesk (565- 2324).