Exabyte EXB-8205, Maintenance Manual, Page: 31 / 101

Determining When the CTS Needs Cleaning
You should clean the CTS’s heads and tape path after every 30 tape
motion hours
. This cleaning frequency does not depend on the
format in which you write and read data. However, if you are using
the CTS in a particularly dirty environment, or if you operate it
infrequently, you may want to clean the CTS more often than every 30
tape motion hours. Cleaning the CTS helps ensure that it will perform
according to its specifications.
The CTS keeps track of tape motion hours internally. You can access
this information in either of the following ways.
Time-to-clean LED indication
When 30 tape motion hours have elapsed, the top and bottom LEDs
will flash rapidly and the middle LED will flash irregularly,
depending on SCSI bus activity. For best results, clean the CTS as
soon as possible after the LEDs begin flashing.
REQUEST SENSE (03h) command
If desired, you can issue a REQUEST SENSE command and look at
the setting of the CLN and CLND bits (byte 21, bits 4 and 3). If the
CLN bit is set to 1, the CTS needs to be cleaned. This bit is reset to 0
when you perform a successful cleaning cycle. The CLND bit is set to
1 when the CTS has been cleaned and is reset to 0 when the next
REQUEST SENSE command is received.
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