Wanda --

I'm now running about 2.4 TB of data daily through 10 LTO2 drives in a
3584. Been doing this for just over a year now. And the only use I see
on my cleaning tapes are from manually verifying drive accessability.

I've never seen an error on the drives, much less the error that means
"clean me!".

Looks like they over-designed the self-cleaning properties of the tapes
. . .

Tom Kauffman
NIBCO, INC

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Prather, Wanda
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2005 12:56 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: LTO drive cleaning in a 3583...

About a year ago this topic was discussed on the list, but no one had an
answer.

So here it is again:

I have 3 IBM 3583 tape libraries with LTO1 & LTO2 drives.  The oldest
has been working over 2 years.
They are set to autoclean, and the cleaning tapes were imported using
the front panel.

So the library should be doing cleaning automatically.
But when we check the status of the cleaning carts on the front panel,
it shows 0 cleans have EVER been done.

Now, I know that LTO drives don't need to be cleaned that often, and
these libraries get less than 100GB per day moved.
But TWO YEARS without a cleaning?!?

Does ANYONE with a 3583 register automatic cleanings done on the drives?


Thanks!