Exabyte EXB-8205 manual Preventive Maintenance, Determining When to Clean the Tape Drive

3Preventive Maintenance

The only routine maintenance required by the tape drive is regular cleaning of the tape drive’s heads and tape path. The only cleaning material authorized for use with the tape drive is an Exabyte or Exabyte-approved 8mm Cleaning Cartridge. In addition, proper storage and maintenance of your data cartridges will maximize the shelf life of you tapes and ensure data integrity.

Important

Using a cleaning method other than the Exabyte 8mm Cleaning Cartridge or an Exabyte-approved cleaning cartridge will void the warranty for the tape drive and can lead to premature head wear.

Determining When to Clean the Tape Drive

You should clean the tape drive’s heads and tape path either once a month or after every 30 tape motion hours, whichever occurs first. This cleaning frequency does not depend on the format in which you write and read data. However, if you are using the tape drive in a particularly dirty environment, or if you operate it infrequently, you may want to clean the tape drive more often.

The tape drive keeps track of its tape motion hours internally. When 30 tape motion hours have elapsed, the top and bottom LEDs will flash rapidly and the middle LED will flash irregularly, depending on SCSI bus activity. For best results, clean the tape drive as soon as possible after the LEDs begin flashing.

Note: Some backup software programs may use additional ways to notify you when the tape drive needs cleaning. Refer to the documentation for your backup software for more information.

28 EXB-8205 and EXB-8505 (Standard and XL) 302967