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The best possible microscope to test media is a tape drive, or rather hundreds of thousands of tape drives in R&D and Manufacturing. HP is unique amongst media suppliers in being a leader in both hardware and media for all the mainstream tape technologies. No one knows better than HP how to fully optimise the performance of the complete solution; by contrast, companies that just sell media can only specialise on that part of it.
All HP Ultrium media undergo an exhaustive battery of procedures that relate directly to how the product is used in the workplace, when actual data and businesses are at stake. We use many drives and media to be sure our results are consistent for any combination, rather than a narrower, custom test on just one drive and cartridge. Whatever the conditions, HP Ultrium can be relied upon for accurate backup and restore, time and time again, day in, day out.
The HP Ultrium test programme is extremely rigorous – 170,000 tests lasting 400,000 hours in 1999, pushing the technology to its limits in the most extreme conditions of temperature, altitude and humidity.