I have 2 Dell LTO backup drives that we have outgrown. I am debating junking them - but wonder if anyone uses LTO2 or LTO3 tapes or drives anymore - or if any software supports them?
6 Spice ups
Well, for SMBs LTO2 is still a viable medium for backup, but generally it’s more economical to go with LTO4/5.
I personally would hang on to the drives just in case you need to recover that far back, or as a backup to your backup. You may be able to sell them on eBay but they probably aren’t fetching a good amount.
Tape is not dead! Not even LTO2!! 
Great to know guys…don’t need to keep them - they were from an era here prior to archiving and our current backups have superceded these so there is no reason to go back. Faster methods to restore that information.
So I won’t junk them - I’ll check on ebay - not looking to make money - just to give to a home where they’ll be used. Be sad to junk them if they are still viable.
Thank you!
LTO3, yet. I really like to squeeze out every bit out of old technology until it completely pays off. Keeping 12 years worth of backups on LTO3 tapes in sync with every backup software version used at the time.
Still using it for yearly long term tape copies from VLT, even if if takes three or more days. Never actually needed to recover anything older than two weeks, but it still feels good to know it is possible.
Still using LTO3 here for archives.
