Q and A-Solicitation 80GSFC23AA004.pdf

Solicitation #80GSFC23AA004 Questions and Responses

Question 1:

Are you looking for an actual hardware library or just the tapes?

Question 1 Response:

This is solicitation is not for a hardware library or for tapes. The Government has older tapes that can no longer be read by commercially available drives and require the data recovered from the tapes as digital files.

Question 2:

Could you please specify the machine in which these tapes will be utilized?

Question 2 Response:

The Government’s expectation is to receive an external hard drive with the data from the tapes, and images and other information about the tapes. The contractor will need a computer system and drives to recover the data, which is NOT a deliverable to the government. The expectation is that the contractor will use an existing recovery system.

Question 3:

What format would you like the data to be returned in?

Question 3 Response:

In accordance with the Statement of Work. Recover/transcribe the data from magnetic tapes to a binary (8-bit byte) data file. The contractor shall: Provide a description of the transcribed data format, specifically addressing the conversion of 7-bit and 9-bit tape formats into 8-bit byte data formats. The exact format is left specifically to the vendor as the intention was not to preclude any solution the vendor may already have. Essentially each tape needs to be transcribed to a file composed of 8-bit bytes with the tape file marks as identified below.

In addition, the Statement of Work requires:

Provide a .csv (comma separated value) inventory file of the individual file marks recovered from each tape to clearly identify the beginning and end of individual files on the media, number of records per file, number of bytes per record, and end of tape marker.

- Provide a description of the inventory file format

- For each tape, a .csv (comma separated values) file shall be created and at a minimum include:

o Number of individual files o Location of Begin mark of file o Location End mark of file o Number of records in file o Number of bytes per record o Location of end of tape marker

Question 4:

Do you have the serial number of the tapes (Each type)?

Question 4 Response:

In accordance with the Statement of Work, the media formats are: 7-track tapes, 9-track tapes, 3480 tapes, 8 mm tapes, and 4 mm tapes. These were commercial standard tape formats at the time that the tapes were written. The drives that were used to write these tapes are no longer commercially available and therefore results in the Government’s request for the data to be recovered from the tapes.

Question 5:

Do you have a picture of the tapes?

Question 5 Response:

These are sample images of the media types and not specific pictures of the actual tapes to be recovered. The 7- and 9-track tapes are essentially the same physical format, the difference is how they are magnetically formatted.

7-track tapes

9-track tapes

3480 tapes

8 mm tapes

4 mm tapes