It may not clean the drive, but the library updated the usage counter for the 
tape evry time we loaded it.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Stef Coene
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 1:32 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: LTO Media

On Monday 29 November 2004 22:25, Kauffman, Tom wrote:
> My original LTO-1 library went back to the leasing company after three
> years of use, averaging about 2 TB of data per DAY across 10 drives. In
> that time period, we clocked 11 uses of one cleaning tape. All eleven
> were manually triggered from the operator panel (move tape from slot to
> drive) to check out tape drives after repair/replace in the first two
> months (before we got the proper microcode installed on the drives).
>
> In other words -- 3 years, 2 TB/day * 365 days *3 -- and the drives
> never indicated they needed to be cleaned. And no I/O errors relating to
> cleaning being required.
I thought that you can not clean a lto drive if it isn't needed.  You can put 
the cleaning tape in, but it will not clean the drive.
Each cleaning tape also has a counter so you can only use it a few times (most 
tapes can be used 50 times).

Stef

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