Chapter 8. Best Practices for Tape Drives and Tape Media
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Cleaning SDLT Drives
Clean the SDLT drive when it indicates that it needs to be cleaned: the Cleaning
Required LED lights up yellow.
Caution:
Never use a DLT cleaning tape in an SDLT drive.
Use only certified SDLT cleaning cartridges to clean your SDLT
tape drives.
To order certified cleaning cartridges, visit Spectra Logic’s Web
site or contact your sales representative.
1.
Power on the RXT350.
2.
Carefully insert the cleaning tape into the drive with the window facing the top
of the drive.
Note:
If the cartridge ejects immediately, it is not an approved cleaning
cartridge. Begin the cleaning procedure with a certified cartridge.
The cleaning tape performs automatic cleaning.
Load (cycle) times for SDLT cleaning cartridges are as follows; these times are
accurate to ±20 seconds:
• Shortest load time (first pass of cleaning cartridge): 2 minutes 55 seconds
• Longest load time (20th pass of cleaning cartridge): 10 minutes 20 seconds
• Expired load time (expired cleaning tape): 4 minutes 30 seconds
On the last pass, the cleaning process stops, the tape is rewound, but the
cartridge is not ejected. If the tape is loaded again after the 20th pass, it winds
all the way to the end of the cartridge and back again without performing the
cleaning sequence; the tape does not eject.
3.
Eject the cartridge and remove it from the drive.
Note:
Do not use the cleaning cartridge more than 20 times. Mark the
cleaning cartridge each time you use it or use backup software to
track cleaning cartridge usage.
