3.1 The provisions of this guide are intended to control and maintain the quality of recorded industrial electronic data from radioscopy and unrecorded magnetic and optical media only, and are not intended to control the acceptability of the materials or products examined. It is further intended that this guide be used as an adjunct to Guide E1000 and Practice E1255.

3.2 The necessity for applying specific control procedures such as those described in this guide is dependent to a certain extent, on the degree to which the user adheres to good recording and storage practices as a matter of routine procedure. Such practices should follow the best-usage practices outlined by both the mechanism and media datasheets.

3.3 This guide has been updated to provide guidance on the LTO and IBM 3592 families of data storage tape formats. The LTO and 3592 family of tape formats are the only remaining actively developed data tape formats.5

3.4 While the above indicated media are the only active digital tape formats on the market, archives of older media, including those with analog data, remain under retention requirements. The changes made here are conservative and do not negatively impact the storage of older media formats.

3.5 The longevity in which the recorded data, either analog or digital, maintains its integrity on magnetic media varies greatly from one media to another. As such, it is considered best practice to duplicate the media at the manufacturer's suggested interval to prevent loss of the recorded data through degradation. On average, this is every five years.