(a) Agencies shall select appropriate media and systems for storing agency records throughout their life, which meet the following requirements:

(1) Permit easy retrieval in a timely fashion;

(2) Facilitate distinction between record and nonrecord material;

(3) Retain the records in a usable format until their authorized disposition date; and

(4) If the media contains permanent records and does not meet the requirements for transferring permanent records to NARA as outlined in § 1228.270 of this chapter, permit the migration of the permanent records at the time of transfer to a medium which does meet the requirements.

(b) The following factors shall be considered before selecting a storage medium or converting from one medium to another:

(1) The authorized life of the records, as determined during the scheduling process;

(2) The maintenance necessary to retain the records;

(3) The cost of storing and retrieving the records;

(4) The records density;

(5) The access time to retrieve stored records;

(6) The portability of the medium (that is, selecting a medium that will run on equipment offered by multiple manufacturers) and the ability to transfer the information from one medium to another (such as from optical disk to magnetic tape); and

(7) Whether the medium meets current applicable Federal Information Processing Standards.

(c) Agencies should avoid the use of floppy disks for the exclusive long-term storage of permanent or unscheduled electronic records.

(d) Agencies shall ensure that all authorized users can identify and retrieve information stored on diskettes, removable disks, or tapes by establishing or adopting procedures for external labeling.

(e) Agencies shall ensure that information is not lost because of changing technology or deterioration by converting storage media to provide compatibility with the agency's current hardware and software. Before conversion to a different medium, agencies must determine that the authorized disposition of the electronic records can be implemented after conversion.

(f) Agencies shall back up electronic records on a regular basis to safeguard against the loss of information due to equipment malfunctions or human error. Duplicate copies of permanent or unscheduled records shall be maintained in storage areas separate from the location of the records that have been copied.

(g) Maintenance of magnetic computer tape. (1) Agencies shall test magnetic computer tapes no more than 6 months prior to using them to store electronic records that are unscheduled or scheduled for permanent retention. This test should verify that the tape is free of permanent errors and in compliance with National Institute of Standards and Technology or industry standards.

(2) Agencies shall maintain the storage and test areas for computer magnetic tapes containing permanent and unscheduled records at the following temperatures and relative humidities:

(3) Agencies shall annually read a statistical sample of all reels of magnetic computer tape containing permanent and unscheduled records to identify any loss of data and to discover and correct the causes of data loss. In tape libraries with 1800 or fewer reels, a 20% sample or a sample size of 50 reels, whichever is larger, should be read. In tape libraries with more than 1800 reels, a sample of 384 reels should be read. Tapes with 10 or more errors should be replaced and, when possible, lost data shall be restored. All other tapes which might have been affected by the same cause (i.e., poor quality tape, high usage, poor environment, improper handling) shall be read and corrected as appropriate.

(4) Agencies shall copy permanent or unscheduled data on magnetic tapes before the tapes are 10 years old onto tested and verified new tapes.

(5) External labels (or the equivalent automated tape management system) for magnetic tapes used to store permanent or unscheduled electronic records shall provide unique identification for each reel, including the name of the organizational unit responsible for the data, system title, and security classification, if applicable. Additionally, the following information shall be maintained for (but not necessarily attached to) each reel used to store permanent or unscheduled electronic records: file title(s); dates of creation; dates of coverage; the recording density; type of internal labels; volume serial number, if applicable; number of tracks; character code/software dependency; information about block size; and reel sequence number, if the file is part of a multi-reel set. For numeric data files, include record format and logical record length, if applicable; data set name(s) and sequence, if applicable; and number of records for each data set.

(6) Agencies shall prohibit smoking and eating in magnetic computer tape storage libraries and test or evaluation areas that contain permanent or unscheduled records.

(h) Maintenance of direct access storage media. (1) Agencies shall issue written procedures for the care and handling of direct access storage media which draw upon the recommendations of the manufacturers.

(2) External labels for diskettes or removable disks used when processing or temporarily storing permanent or unscheduled records shall include the following information: name of the organizational unit responsible for the records, descriptive title of the contents, dates of creation, security classification, if applicable, and identification of the software and hardware used.