Cleaning drive DLT8000

[Ricardo Rocha]

Hi

In surestore 1/20 with a DLT8000, what's the recommended frequency for cleaning the drive?

Is there a way to configure Omniback to automatically use the cleaning tape every # uses?

Thanks in advance

[Eugeny Brychkov]

DLT drive should be cleaned only on its request. I guess that OB can detect these requests and clean drive
Eugeny

[Leif Halvarsson_2 · Accepted solution]

Hi
Yes, you can configyre OmniBack to detect and clean dirty drives.

- In the Library properties is a checkbox for cleaning tape and scroll down list for slot.

- In the drive/properties/advanced is a checkbox for dirty drive detect.

There is no way to set cleaning for a number of uses (this is not recommended) but, if you absolute WANT to do this it should pe possible with a pre or post_exec script.

[Angus Crome]

For HP-UX;

You can do a little scripting and use the
/var/opt/omni/log/cleaning.log file to determine the current number of cleans on the tape. It would require at least two labels, or some custom entries in the file to delimit the changing of the cartridge.

I used to used a script like this, before I moved to LTO. I have been running for 2 months on 6 IBM LTO's, and have had no request for cleans yet. It was getting a couple a day on DLT (but the tapes were 4+ years old).

Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of the script, as the system was sold off and all its backups were Recycled. It was only about 15-20 lines long though. The only real commands in it were head, tail and egrep.

[Gerhard Roets]

It depends on how much you use the drive. But I have to agree with the first reply only clean it on request.

We do not use omniback and hvave unattended backups we use roughly 1 tape a night and found a good cycle is to clean it once every week. I would say start by doing it once every 4 weeks and adjust as needed.

This is a continuing process as data volume never tends to stay constant. You will find your own cleaning sweetspot and will need to adjust it over time.

HTH
Gerhard