[Info-vax] lower-cost bulk eraser for high-coercivity tape media (DAT, DLT, Ultrium etc)?

[terry-groups at glaver.org]

On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 4:44:58 PM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> I use a cheap Radio Shack tape eraser for clearing old disks
> for reformatting.  I would not do this for security reasons.
> I would run them thru a shredder.  I would recommend pulling
> the tape out of the cartridge and running it thru a shredder.

I wouldn't depend on a degausser that wasn't specifically designed for the type of tape. I've seen people run modern media through various old-school degaussers and the media isn't affected at all.

As far as pulling (all) of the tape out, modern LTO media has over half a mile of tape in the cartridge. You'll be there for a while. Plus, you'll end up with a much larger pile of loose tape.