Abstract: A magnetic tape apparatus includes a first and second suction tubes, each of which couples the blade with an edge part of the roller of the roller guide, the first suction tube having a blade side opening area at a location where air is sucked by the blade during a forward rotation of a motor, a second suction tube having a blade side opening area at a location where air is sucked by the blade during the backward rotation of the motor, a shutter unit to perform opening and closing of the first and second suction tubes, and an opening and closing control unit to control the shutter unit to open the first suction tube during the forward rotation and open the second suction tube during the backward rotation.

Abstract: A microprocessor of a tape drive may identify a pattern associated with data files previously written to tape, predict information about a next data file to be written to the tape based on the pattern, select a tape rate based on the predicted information, and operate the tape drive at the selected tape rate.