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Article Number: 000191878

PowerVault LTO, ML3, TL1000: A New Piece of LTO-9 Media May Take Longer than Expected to Become Ready

Summary: Media Optimization occurs on the first load of LTO-9 media in to an LTO-9 tape drive.

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Article Content

Symptoms

On the first load of LTO-9 media in an LTO-9 tape drive, the user may notice a long period of time passes before the media becomes ready to use. They may also report:

  • During this time backup software and the operating system may encounter command timeouts on operations to the drive.

  • New LTO-9 media may appear stuck in the drive.

  • Mounting new media in a different LTO-9 drive does not shorten the amount of time before the new media is ready to use.

During this time, the Single Character Display (SCD) a solid, lower case 'c' on the front panel of a stand-alone LTO-9 drive.

Note: The green activity LED blinks at a 1 Hz interval during this time indicating activity.

Cause

The increased number of tracks used to write data on an LTO9 tape requires greater precision.
 
Media optimization creates a referenced calibration for each cartridge on the first load of that tape into an LTO-9 tape drive.
 
Media optimization enables the tape drive’s intelligent alignment to optimize data placement on each individual piece of media. In addition, LTO-9 media optimization enhances the long-term durability of LTO-9 media.

Resolution

Upon successful calibration of media subsequent loads will be of normal duration across all LTO-9 drives.  Media optimization averages 40 minutes per first load of an LTO-9 cartridge to an LTO-9 tape drive.  
Note: Although most media optimizations will complete within 60 minutes some media optimizations may take up to 2 hours.
Caution: The media optimization process should not be interrupted.

How to recognize if an LTO-9 drive is in the media optimization process.
  • Standalone LTO 9: the SCD will display ‘c’ and the green LED will blink at a 1 Hz interval until completion of media optimization.
 Figure 1.     PowerVault LTO9 tape drive

Figure 1.     PowerVault LTO9 tape drive

  • PowerVault TL1000:  The LCD displays ‘Ready’. Log into the web GUI to monitor the ‘Calibrating’ status until completion of media optimization.
Figure 2.   TL1000 management interface
Figure 2.   TL1000 management interface
 
  • PowerVault ML3: the OCD does not display status. Log into the web GUI and navigate to the Drives menu option. Any LTO 9 drive performing media optimization will display a ‘Calibrating’ status.
Figure 3.   ML3 management interface showing LTO-9 calibrating state

Figure 3.   ML3 management interface showing LTO-9 calibrating state

Note: When a cartridge is first added to an ML3 the status displays as "Unknown" in the library GUI.

 
Figure 4.   ML3 media optimized showing unknown

Figure 4.   ML3 media optimized showing unknown

In some cases media status will display as "NA" after media optimization (calibration) completes in an LTO9 drive at code level N9B0 and N9B1.
 
Figure 5.   ML3 media optimized showing N/A

Figure 5.   ML3 media optimized showing N/A

The status will not change until the media is unloaded and loaded a second time. After the second load, the status is “Media Optimized: Yes”.
 
Figure 6. ML3 media optimized reported as Yes.

Figure 6. ML3 media optimized reported as Yes.

Note: If a full format of the LTO-9 media is performed, the same media optimization operation will occur on the first load of the media after full format.

Article Properties

Affected Product

Dell EMC ML3, PowerVault LTO9, PowerVault TL1000

Last Published Date

21 Mar 2024

Version

4

Article Type

Solution

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