StoreEver Tape Storage
1748202 Members
2942 Online
108759 Solutions
New Discussion юеВ

Galactica DLT 2/20 going to ruins?

 
Vladimir Vybiral
Valued Contributor

Galactica DLT 2/20 going to ruins?

Hello,
I have a demo unit of HP SureStore 2/20 with DLT8000 drives, whch has been used only VERY sporadicaly. Now when I cannot use it as a demo anymore I wanted to use it for our backups. The problem is that it is failing.
During one month of usage, following happened:
One drive has has been requesting cleaning twice a day, then swallowed the leader :(
The other drive is functioning, but starts to have the same problems - often cleaning, data rate decrease, BackupExec giving errors of "The drive has problems writing/reading data...
All is checked (FW, cables, drivers, FC connection, the media are brand new).
LTT does not give any errors, the support ticket seems to be okay.
As a demo equipment the library has been travelling a bit, but I believe (or want to believe) it has been handled with care.
Any idea what else shall I check?

Vladimir
When speaking, Your words should sound better than Your silence - Arabic proverb
2 REPLIES 2
Eugeny Brychkov
Honored Contributor

Re: Galactica DLT 2/20 going to ruins?

Vladimir,
which OS? Windows or hpux? I think that LTT accesses drive directly through SCSI driver, but backup application uses its driver (should use). So please check which driver is loaded for the tape drive. Attach support ticket zipped
Eugeny
Curtis Ballard
Honored Contributor

Re: Galactica DLT 2/20 going to ruins?

If the unit has been used as a demo unit then it may have a lot of load/unload cycles on the drives. Frequently demo units are set to run random load/unloads so you can see how they operate. With DLT drives the load/unload cycle is really hard on the drive, specifically the head. Some debris will be scraped off of the tape leader on every load/unload and will go into the drive. In normal operation enough tape passes over the head to move that debris off of the head. In demo mode that doesn't occur and the heads and any other sensors in the drive get clogged.

You might try cleaning the head several times in a row. The cleaning tape is more abrasive than a regular tape but tries to take off as little head material as possible. If the head has bad build-up on it then multiple cleanings may be necessary.

If too many load/unload cycles were done then the heads may be damaged even though the drives don't have many tape motion hours.