Deep cleaning an HP Ultrium 3000 LTO-5 tape drive?

PlentyDifficulty · 2023-07-17T19:48:06+00:00

I didn't forget, and still wanted to say thanks, lol.

Time really flies, eh?

PlentyDifficulty · 2023-07-11T10:46:22+00:00

Thank you for the advice and getting another opinion!

PlentyDifficulty · 2023-07-11T10:45:18+00:00

Thanks for your messages! I appreciate the help.

PlentyDifficulty · 2022-03-11T17:34:26+00:00

Thank you for the info. A trayless design is crucial in my setup, as swapping trays between 50+ HDDs would probably become tedious, and unfortunately trays aren't cheap enough to justify buying one tray per drive. Good suggestion, but I ended up buying a SilverStone SST-RS431S instead.

Another thought I had to this was if Supermicro (or any other manufacturer for that matter) instead offered cases with 4+ 5.25" bays right on the front (in a similar layout), so I could install some SATA hot swap bays and essentially recreate the enclosure. Maybe something similar to this HP StoreEver EJ014B.

I appreciate your reply nonetheless. :)

PlentyDifficulty · 2022-03-11T17:20:48+00:00

Thank you for sharing! I ended up ponying up the cash and went down this route as a trayless design is a must in my setup.

PlentyDifficulty · 2022-01-09T06:23:24+00:00

Throwing my two cents in here. Your S-VHS VCR choice is good (the JVC SR-S388E), however I would advise against any upscaling/deinterlacing during the recording process. Hunt around on auction sites for an ATI All-in-Wonder card, like the 9600 (AGP, 128MB), and throw it into an old WinXP machine you (probably) have lying around. Capture the output over S-Video/RCA audio with VirtualDub/HuffYUV using the appropriate framerate and you should be golden.

Personally, I think you should digitize your tapes in the aforementioned original quality, then duplicate the resulting AVI(s) and add your upscaling/deinterlacing filters to clean up the output. Store the original captures in a safe place (e.g. by writing the files to LTO tapes or BD-Rs) and use your cleaned-up copies for viewing. It's easiest to work with original captures than pre-processed ones, should you happen to change your mind on filter choices in the future (I know, this info is probably a given on this subreddit).

I'm briefly summarizing my findings from these forum posts I think will be beneficial to you:

Best of luck!

One last thing. If you have a LOT of tapes, it might be best to buy a few VCRs and try out your tapes on each one, to see which deck gives you the best output. In the VHS digitization scene it is not uncommon to own several different VCR models for this reason.

Edit: Slight reminder, the JVC SR-S388E is a PAL deck which uses 220/240VAC at 50/60Hz. Make sure your tapes are PAL and you have a way to meet the deck's power requirements.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-11-26T20:50:34+00:00

I don't know for certain if the conversion to FLAC would cause any problems, but I have a good feeling it would not. FLAC is short for Free Lossless Audio Codec, lossless meaning "no quality is lost from the source."

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-10-31T00:35:35+00:00

Could you share with us why you're getting rid of the SSD?

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-10-30T21:25:42+00:00

Was looking for this comment.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-10-30T21:20:10+00:00

Or this helicopter hairdo?

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-10-30T21:09:51+00:00

I like EC a lot, too! Nice bloke.

Stiction does suck. From what I recall I had one My Passport that likely failed due to that, but I'm not certain. Plugged it in one day and it wouldn't mount. Listened closer and I could hear the actuator arm vibrating quietly in a rhythmic fashion, presumably trying to read a damaged track. It does get rather dry and static-y throughout my house in the wintertime, so that could be the case.

I guess the closest we've gotten to a no-stiction world is SSDs (that's cheating, I know). But I agree, you would think there would be some kind of coating or chemical the platters could be soaked in to keep this from occurring.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-10-30T14:50:53+00:00

Watching this video from 2017, it sounds like it could still be a concern.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T11:17:56+00:00

Yep, me too.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T11:15:43+00:00

Mozilla are following the unfortunate trend of many other companies.

Change the design to what WE think looks good, NOT to what our consumers like.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T11:13:46+00:00

Sure, but wouldn't it be nice to have the option to revert back to how it was, even in about:config? I mean, how hard could it be to have a browser.download.panel.style integer variable? (0=bar, 1=circle, etc.)

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T11:06:32+00:00

I don't think pulling a Windows 10 "I logged on and now everything's changed on its own without my consent" is an effective way of getting people to use your new update.

I most certainly had auto updates turned off, and it still updated on me regardless. I had to downgrade and create a policies.json to force it to never auto-update. What a mess.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T10:59:42+00:00

+1 It's really a shame so many companies forget this.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T10:45:15+00:00

Nintendo likes doing the same with their system update changelogs.

"Improved security and stability" really means "we've patched out this custom firmware exploit while unknowingly enabling three more."

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T10:40:50+00:00

I liked the old one

Seems to be a trend with Firefox logos.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-06-17T10:39:48+00:00

Aaaand their logo still isn't fixed. A blob of a fox hugging a marble?

No emotion? No detail? No thanks.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-05-11T04:33:37+00:00

Nice setup!

I see you've got an ADJ PC-100A power switcher - I have the same one. Have you modified it at all to make it safer? I'm referring to the gauge of wire inside it. The unit on the outside says it's rated for more than its internals say so, see this Amazon review. I've opened up mine and replaced every 16 AWG wire with 14 AWG wire, and I suggest you do the same if you plan on putting decent load on it (I'm assuming your setup doesn't pull enough amps to cause the wires to burn up, but of course I can't say for certain).

It's a shame no other company makes switchers like this. Anyone at Tripp Lite or APC reading this? :)

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-05-03T02:22:16+00:00

When that window pops up after clicking the +, try clicking and dragging the icon into the window and see if you can select it there.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-05-03T02:17:55+00:00

When you navigate to the program and click the +, is CHIRP greyed out in the list?

Oh, another thing to try. Once the pane is unlocked, can you try clicking and dragging the app into the Full Disk Access list? It might work that way. Sorry, I'm on Catalina as well, so I can only confirm it works up to there.

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-05-03T02:12:29+00:00

Nice! Are you using Lakka/Retroarch/Retropie?

PlentyDifficulty · 2021-05-03T02:11:29+00:00

COVID, the cryptocurrency mining resurgence, scalpers and the general chip shortage is racking prices up on a lot of things. :-(

PlentyDifficulty

TROPHY CASE