"Clean Me" requests are also generated when the drive encounters a
"problem".  A faulty/failing drive can cause an abnormal spike in
cleaning requests.  I monitor these requests daily as an indicator of
drive health.  I have found that an increase in "Clean Me" messages
correlates with an "Attn Drive" message on the LCD of the 3590E1A.

 
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Zoltan Forray/AC/VCU
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 1:10 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: OT?: 3590 cleaning scheduling

Lately, I have been noticing lots of "Clean Me" messages in ERRPT of the
TSM AIX system, for the 3590E1A drives it uses.

So, I started looking into the setting on the 3494, which controls
cleaning. Currently, it is set to clean by usage (65).

Upon digging through the "IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Tape - A Practical
Guide" Redbook, I found the paragraph:

We recommend that drive cleaning be based on a drive request. Use
time-based cleaning only if drive usage is very low. For 3590 tape
drives, use a value of 999 mounts to perform cleaning based on a drive
request rather than an initiated library.

So, what do you use to control the cleaning cycle for your 3494/3590
drives ?  Do you follow the above recommendation ?    Is this a global
recommendation that can be applied to *ALL* 359x drives ?

Inquiring minds want to know ?