Boss wanted me to dump them. What have I got? All sealed

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Terrible-Bear3883@reddit

I used to have a lot of customers with Exabyte backup drives in the good old days.

The VXA tape format is covered in this Wiki article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VXA

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AverageAppleAutist@reddit (OP)

Thank you! I was born in the late 90s and never ran into this media

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vintagecomputernerd@reddit

They're still around, and are still the cheapest solution if you need to archive petabytes of data. r/datahoarder has some tape users :)

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grizzlor_@reddit

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least one person on r/datahoarder with an entire tape backup autoloader/“jukebox” rig in their basement.

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help_send_chocolate@reddit

Quite a lot of them, though likely not Exabyte tapes, ironically they are too small.

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OldDiehl@reddit

You might be able to donate them to a computer museum.

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help_send_chocolate@reddit

I think it's unlikely. I have been trying to donate a working (SCSI) Exabyte tape drive to a museum in Europe for over a year, but apparently no interest.

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Laser_Krypton7000@reddit

If it is in germany i would take it:-)

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help_send_chocolate@reddit

I'm willing to post to Germany. DM me. I will try to check postage rates.

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tinmd@reddit

8mm back up tapes. boy that brings back memories. SCSI backup device.

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hanz333@reddit

You're kind of at the end of reliability for those tapes from a material degradation standpoint.

They are designed to make it 30 years in optimal conditions but aren't designed fro long-term storage and are really seen (and marketed) as rotating short-term backups on a standard that has long since been abandoned.

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help_send_chocolate@reddit

Not necessarily. In 2024 I read an Exabyte tape which had been written in 1993. Zero errors.

But, of course, sample size of 1 there.

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hanz333@reddit

There's a ton of variables, and absolutely I think you should try to read old tapes if you can, time capsules are cool.

But what are you going to use a blank tape for? Certainly not anything more than a curiosity.

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Velocityg4@reddit

Use it as a terrible swap disk.

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AdventurousEye8894@reddit

For AI to extend VRAM 🙃

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hanz333@reddit

Genius.

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Euphoric-Divine@reddit

I just paid more than I should.for two...

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AverageAppleAutist@reddit (OP)

Selling the lot for €30 😅

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Euphoric-Divine@reddit

Let me just check the compatibility :D I may he in the same ballpark but not close enough :D

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Independent_Shoe3523@reddit

Government agencies used to still use those types of carts but might not be the case now. Could still sell as a vintage collectible on ebay.

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Js987@reddit

They’re VXA packet technology backup tapes. From the size, they’re probably \~20 years old. They were designed for short-term, rotating backups, not archival storage, so the tapes are probably at the edge of reliability over the full tape. They're worth a few bucks a tape to somebody who has a weird ongoing need for them, but there’s a decent supply still on eBay and whatnot, so they’re not particularly valuable.

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Cwc2413@reddit

Probably still usable but not many will be interested. Maybe stash them for a while and see.