In the message dated: Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:44:25 -0400, The pithy ruminations from John Drescher on <Re: [Bacula-users] tapes randomly become unrecognizeable> were: => > DO NOT PRINT YOUR OWN LABELS => > EVER => => I have for the last 100 or so tapes and I have had 0 issues with that. =>
In my experience, the readability of barcode labels is highly dependant on the combination of the label and the barcode reader. Since 2006 we've had: LTO2 library ~100 pre-printed labels, no problem LTO3 library ~100 pre-printed labels, no problem ~50 in-house labels, no problem ~100 in-house labels, no problem ~50 in-house labels, no problem LTO3 2nd library ~50 in-house labels, ~1% failure rate LTO3 2nd library ~50 in-house labels, ~1% failure rate LTO4 50 pre-printed labels, no problem 50 in-house LTO4 labels: ~75% failure ~75% failure reading existing LTO3 in-house labels (100% failure for some batches, ~25% failure for other batches) ~ 5% failure rate reading pre-printed LTO3 labels Over the years, we've used different parameters for printing labels, with extremely minor changes (mm) in the height and width of the labels. All labels were printed with a color laser printer onto self-adhesive (Avery 6577) label stock, following the TriOptic color coding and the USS-39 barcode standard. However, each the barcode reader on each of our tape libraries is different--some (the 2nd LTO3 library) were slightly sensitive to the label placement (whether it was straight, whether it was to the left/right/top/bottom of the indented region on the tape cassette), while the reader in our current LTO4 library is extremely sensitive to the barcode size, label position, stray ink or discoloration on the edge of a label, etc. The LTO4 libarary has even had difficulty reading some pre-printed labels. We've used the following on-line barcode generators, as well as local perl scripts: http://www.mytapelabels.com/ http://blog.maniac.nl/index.php/webbased-pdf-lto-barcode-generator/ In short, I'd say that the success--or failure--of locally generated barcode labels is highly dependent on the combination of the label and the barcode scanner; there is no absolute answer for every environment. Mark => John => => ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Mark Bergman voice: 215-662-7310 mark.berg...@uphs.upenn.edu fax: 215-614-0266 System Administrator Section of Biomedical Image Analysis Department of Radiology University of Pennsylvania PGP Key: https://www.rad.upenn.edu/sbia/bergman ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 positioned as A LEADER in The Forrester Wave(TM): Endpoint Security, Q1 2013 and "remains a good choice" in the endpoint security space. For insight on selecting the right partner to tackle endpoint security challenges, access the full report. http://p.sf.net/sfu/symantec-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users