Cleaning tape drives - how do YOU do it?

I prefer library to handle that.

We do the same as Hrvoje recommended, that is, we have setup the jukebox to have three slots for cleaning tapes and have selected the auto clean option. This way each time a drive requires cleaning NetWorker takes care of it and all we have to do is monitor and replace the cleaning tapes when they expire.

Paul

We're cleaning the drives when Networker requests it (meaning messages in logfile). We're performing the cleaning operation via the touch panel of the library. We're not using reserved slots within the library (in first place for ease of management and in second of capacity) but insert a cleaning tape via load load. This is not as much work as it may sound - cleaning is required perhaps once in 4 months.

A friend of mine discouraged me from cleaning drives in a planned interval (eg. every month) without real need since the magnetic head of the tape drive is enormously stressed. I've found some information comparing the hardware abrasion of a single cleaing operation with about 50 hours common use.

We let library handle this, so far so good.

Hi,

With a library such as STK's SL8500 you are best advised to let the library perform device cleaning as required rather than imposing any form of scheduled operations. If you can allocate a dedicated media slot in the library and then remove this from the NetWorker's configuration then even better.

One comment of advice about cleaning media - you should monitor the cleaning media's usage - frequent cleaning of devices may be indicative of other problems.

IKP