LTO7 tapes in LTO8 drives and LTO7 drives

[VCFP]

[not DIRECTLY related to Veeam, but we use VBR with tapes and people here might be able to answer the question]

Hi,

unfortunately one of our LTO7 drives broke down and the quote we received shows that a replacement
LTO7 drive is more expensive than an LTO8 drive.

The change from LTO7 to LTO8 technology broke some of the traditional specs of LTO technology about
reading of and writing to older tapes.

As far as I found out, the LTO8 drive will be able to read LTO7 tapes we already have (written in LTO7 drives).
Where it gets murky is writing. The LTO8 drive is supposed to write to LTO7 tapes in the LTO7 format (writing
in M8 format is not considered here). An LTO7 tape, written by an LTO8 drive will still be readable by an LTO7 drive.

My question now is: Will this tape written by the LTO8 drive be also writable again by LTO7 drives we
still have, ie. are LTO7 tapes completely usable between LTO7 and LTO8 drives?
Is anyone here doing just that, mixing LTO7 tapes in LTO7 and LTO8 drives?

The library in question is sold by Tandberg/Overland and the LTO8 drive will probably be by IBM, the still working LTO7
drives are definitely IBM drives.

Regards,
Klaus

[HannesK]

Hello,
I'm not doing it my own, but an LTO7 tape stays an LTO7 tape even if an LTO8 drive wrote data to it. And LTO7 drive can write to LTO7 tapes.

LTO-8 drives can read and write to LTO-7 and LTO-8 media, including LTO-7 Type M.

https://www.lto.org/lto-generation-compatibility
Best regards,
Hannes