Spectra Logic 10000 manual Cleaning Drives, Built-In Cleaning Feature

Chapter 6. Maintaining the Library

Cleaning Drives

Built-In Cleaning Feature

The Sony AIT drive uses a built-in head cleaner designed to last for the life of the drive. This built-in cleaner works well, but it should not be relied upon as the only drive-cleaning mechanism, particularly in environments where more excessive drive head contamination may occur.

Spectra Logic recommends that drives be cleaned after every 100 hours of use in normal data center environments. If excessive read or write errors occur while the drives are being cleaned with that frequency, Spectra Logic recommends cutting the cleaning time to every 50 hours of drive use.

Caution: Drive cleaning should be performed using only approved Sony SDX-TCL cleaning cartridges. For ordering information, see Purchasing Additional Library Accessories on page 64.

The AIT tape drive is an extremely reliable media storage subsystem; performing a few simple maintenance procedures will keep the drives reading and writing reliably for many years.

•For best performance with AIT tape drives, perform a read/write confidence test with your backup software regularly. For information about performing this operation, see the documentation for your backup software.

•As previously explained, the drive cleans itself when necessary. If further cleaning is necessary, as may be indicated by the read/write confidence test, use only Sony SDX-TCL cleaning cartridges. For ordering information, contact your sales representative.

For more information about cleaning your drives, see Tape Drive Head Cleaning on page 87.

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