HP C5718A DDS-4 20/40GB Data Tape Cartridge

Name: HP C5718A DDS-4 20/40GB Data Tape Cartridge
Brand: HP
SKU: C5718A

Overview

The HP C5718A DDS-4 cartridge occupies a specific and shrinking niche: it's the right consumable for the right legacy infrastructure, and nothing more. In a DDS-4 tape drive — common in small-to-medium enterprise server rooms throughout the early 2000s — this cartridge delivers 20GB native capacity across 150 meters of 4mm tape, with a 40GB compressed ceiling for highly compressible workloads. The DDS-4 specification represented a meaningful capacity and speed step up from DDS-3 in its time, and HP's manufacturing standards for this media mean head pass durability hits the 5,000-cycle rating with less variance than off-brand alternatives. For systems running nightly incremental backups of file servers or database dumps where data volumes stay well under the native capacity ceiling, a rotation set of these cartridges remains a dependable, low-cost archival medium.

The honest context for purchasing this cartridge in 2024 is maintenance, not expansion. DDS-4 is a legacy format — drives are no longer manufactured, and the format has been superseded multiple times over by LTO generations that offer orders-of-magnitude more capacity at faster throughput. If your backup infrastructure is DDS-4 and a replacement cycle isn't yet justified, the HP C5718A is the correct consumable: reliable, properly rated, and manufactured to the tolerances your aging drive hardware was designed around. For anyone building a new backup or archival workflow, the capacity and format longevity constraints make DDS-4 a poor foundation — the investment in LTO or disk-based backup pays off quickly at modern data volumes.

Specifications

Type

DDS-4 Data Tape Cartridge

Native Capacity

20 GB

Compressed Capacity

40 GB

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Pros & Cons

👍 Pros

20GB native / 40GB compressed capacity covers typical file-server incremental backups on DDS-4 infrastructure without spanning multiple cartridges.
The 4mm DDS-4 format is physically compact — cartridges store densely in a tape library or offsite storage rotation without significant physical footprint.
5,000 head pass durability rating supports hundreds of full backup cycles, making this a cost-effective consumable for long-running archival rotation sets.
150-meter tape length maximizes capacity within the DDS-4 physical format standard.
HP-branded media is manufactured to tighter tolerances than generic alternatives, reducing the risk of read errors on older or well-used DDS-4 drives.

👎 Cons

20GB native capacity is severely limited by modern data volumes — a single VM image or raw video file can exceed the entire cartridge capacity.
DDS-4 is a discontinued legacy format; replacement drives, spare parts, and manufacturer support are increasingly difficult to source as infrastructure ages.
The 40GB compressed capacity claim requires ideally compressible data — real-world throughput for mixed or already-compressed workloads will fall significantly short of that figure.
Tape write speeds in the DDS-4 format are slow by contemporary standards, making full server backups time-prohibitive compared to modern LTO or disk-based solutions.
Long-term magnetic media degradation requires careful climate-controlled storage conditions — an environmental failure can make cartridges unreadable without warning.

Frequently Asked Questions

What backup hardware is this cartridge compatible with?

The HP C5718A is a DDS-4 format cartridge requiring a DDS-4 (DAT-72 predecessor) tape drive. It is not forward-compatible with DDS-5/DAT-72 or DAT-160/320 drives, and will not work in DDS-1, DDS-2, or DDS-3 drives. Verify your drive's format support before purchasing.

What is the real-world capacity I should plan for?

The native (uncompressed) capacity is 20GB. The 40GB compressed figure assumes a 2:1 compression ratio, which is only achievable with highly compressible data like text files or databases. Binary files, already-compressed archives, and media files will land much closer to the 20GB native figure.

How many read/write cycles can I expect before reliability degrades?

HP rates this cartridge at 5,000 head passes. For a typical backup-and-verify cycle, that translates to hundreds of complete backup cycles under normal use — sufficient for long-term archival rotation if the cartridge is stored and handled correctly.

What are the storage conditions for long-term archival use?

Magnetic tape degrades faster when exposed to high humidity, temperature fluctuations, or magnetic fields. For long-term archival, store cartridges in a controlled environment: 18–28°C, 20–60% relative humidity, away from magnetic sources and direct sunlight.

Is DDS-4 still a viable format for new archival deployments?

DDS-4 is a legacy format. For systems already running DDS-4 infrastructure, this cartridge is a reliable consumable. New deployments should evaluate modern tape formats (LTO-8 and beyond) which offer dramatically higher capacity, faster throughput, and longer manufacturer support lifecycles.