C1537/a C1554/a unable to write DDS3

[Florian Zschocke]

Hello
Frist:
You can be sure the we can read the instructions of tape-cleaning and other material and that we do not risk to write customers critical data on old tapes.

Second:
Like I told before, it is time to tell us why these drives are giving up such a short, distinguished period.
Everything they told me, and believe me I am not the only one (read this NG), is not true.
As one example the here discussed ???memory effect of dds2-tape???.

Third:
Of course, perhaps I could find a way to reduce backup-data to 3GB but than please write into the documentation :
Please use this drive only under very special conditions and circumstances and please wear gloves.

[Ted Ellis_2]

why are you cleaning the drives on a schedule? You may be stripping the heads on your drive by cleaning too often... just let them request a cleaning... something for future

[Florian Zschocke]

Hey Ted ??? sorry but I???m tired of this kind of discussion.
Cleaned to often, not often enough ???.
You can call the HP-support-center here in Germany +491805326222 they will tell you
to do so.
You know, I have a big feedback from the people I am working with, to do something about these lousy drives. That means, that there are a lot of frustrated customers and perhaps we can find a solution on this problem.
I really don???t know if there is something with the firmware and I know nearly nothing about firmware-programming, but I know some people who can figure it out. They told me, if you find 50 persons who made the same experience like you, we will help you.
Perhaps they took a DDS2 mechanic and brought a DDS3-Firmware in it and the drive is therefore bad. In the end it is not important why this drive is giving up.
Look they take your money and say this drive will work 200.000 hours at 12% duty. If this drive will work only a few percent of this and went bad, they say: you cleaned to often or not often enough, memory effect???.. And a fix will cost 15% less than a new drive. You know what I call this ? ??? No, you better don???t know.
Oh I forgot, meanwhile I have four bad drives here on my table.

[Ted Ellis_2]

have fun partner.. sorry nothing seems to help

[David Ruska]

> why are you cleaning the drives on a schedule?
> You may be stripping the heads on your drive by cleaning too often... just let them request a cleaning... something for future

That statement is correct for a DLT drive, but NOT DDS. Each drive technology has their own cleaning requirements.

For DDS, I'll quote the DDS3 manual:

"As a general guideline, you should clean the tape heads every fifth backup cartridge. You should also clean the heads if the media caution signal is displayed on a tape drive or the 'Clean Me' message is displayed on an autoloader".

I've heard other references to cleaning after every 20 hours of backup use.

The DDS4 drives included improvements to help keep the heads clean, but they still recommend the cleaning schedule mentioned above.