Tape drive problems

[LORI_27]

We have a proliant 800 server. Does anyone know how i can test the tape drive to see what the problem is? We use microsoft windows backup 5.0 and i have gotten the following message " removable storage did not mount the requested media. the operation was aborted. the operation was terminated by user." i got this message for 2 nights then had 2 nights of good backup now it is not working again. Any help out there? I have tried new tapes.

[Lewis Finch]

Lori, You didn't mention what tape drive you have but if it's HP SCSI you can go here and download Library and Tape Tools diagnostic to trouble shoot your drive, upgrade firmware etc. You need to stop the RSM service before running the diag.

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/ltt/index.html

[LORI_27]

I have been told it is a sdt9000, 12/24 gb dat.Can i still go to recommended site?
Thank you for you reply!!!

[Lewis Finch]

The SDT9000 is a SONY DAT drive so our diagnostic will probably see it but not work with it. You might check SONY's web site to see if they have a similar diagnostic tool

[CA713937]

Lori,

If it has a "COMPAQ SDT-9000" product ID (on SCSI), then it's the Compaq (now HP) branded product and it should be supported by HP LTT.

If it has a "SONY SDT-9000" product ID, it is a Sony branded product (not supported).

[LORI_27]

THE ONLY PRINT ON FRONT OF DRIVE IS 12/24 GB DAT

[CA713937]

I assume this is an internal drive, so you can't see any other labels.

Install HP LTT (www.hp.com/support/tapetools), and it will display the product ID in the device list.

Also, if it's the Compaq product the icon will be blue (supported product).

[LORI_27]

Thanks David. I will try this and see what I find out.

[LORI_27]

DAVID..test showed no errors, but event viewer shows tape drive problems (device tape has had bad block and error was encountered while attempting to read data from media, just to name 2)still would not back up and indicator light flashes to clean drive after every use and takes anywhere from 5- 25 minutes to eject the tape. Hp has replced the tape drive 3 times in the last 3-4 years and now I have no warranty. I guess my next step is to replace it I really dont want to replace with same type since we have had trouble with it. Is there something I can replace it with that has a better track record? do i need to replace a driver to keep this from happening? what can I do without reconstructing the whole network?
thanks for your time

[CA713937 · Accepted solution]

What you describe sounds like error rate issues caused be wearing out of the heads, or chemical staining.

Are you using native capacity (DDS3) tapes? The older format tapes are more abrasive.

What duty cycle does the drives have? The DDS standalone drives are usually rated at 5 hours or less per day (20%).

Was the drive cleaned after every 5th full backup (or every 20 hours of use)?

Not following those recommendations can cause accelerated wear or premature failure.

Those are the numbers for the branded product (which I'm more familiar with), but the Compaq product should be similar.

[LORI_27]

TAPES USED ARE 4MM x 120MM DDS-120 8GB imation and maxell..What is a duty cycle? I have been told to only clean when the indicaotr light comes on.

[Lewis Finch]

Hi Lori,

Duty cycle refers to the number of hours of pulling tape in any given 24 hour period. Example, a 12% duty cycle means that the drive should pull tape no longer that 2.88 hours in any day. This can be exceeded however, doing it often can cause premature wear. Not sure what Sony recommendations are, but for HP DAT drives we recommend cleaning once per week or after 20 hours of backup time. If you wait until the light comes on it may require multiple cleanings

[CA713937]

Lori,

Lewis explained what duty cycle is. The quickspec for the DAT24 says 20% is the maximum recommended.

Lewis and I work with the HP branded products, so I thought I'd check what the Compaq manuals say about duty cycle and cleaning.

CLEANING:
---------------------

IMPORTANT: Regular cleaning is vital to trouble-free operation of any tape
device. Failure to follow recommended cleaning procedures can result in serious
damage to your tape drive.
---

DUTY CYCLE:
-----------------
The reliability of any backup device is directly related to its duty cycle (the
number of hours per day that the device is in use). For example, if a tape drive
designed for 1-GB backups is being used to back up a 10-GB server, the result
on that drive will be a need for accelerated preventive maintenance (especially
head cleaning), premature aging, and reliability problems.
---


DUTY CYCLE & CLEANING
------------------------------------------
The projected duty cycle of the DAT drive is an important consideration in
determining the amount of time required for backup of a given system as well
as how often it will be necessary to clean the tape driveâ s read/write heads.
For example, a nightly, unattended, complete 8-GB backup is well within the
capacity of one 4/8-GB DAT drive. However, at a backup rate between 1
GB/hour and 1.75 GB/hour, that tape drive will be in operation for 6 to 8
hours every night. With this amount of usage, the tape driveâ s read/write
heads should be cleaned every other night. If the drive heads are not cleaned,
soft errors and overall backup time will increase and eventually cause the
drive to fail.
---

CLEANING PROCEDURES - WHEN TO CLEAN
---------------------------------------------
* When you have used a new DAT drive for the first 2 hours, clean the
read/write head of the drive with a new cleaning cassette.
* When using new tape cassettes, clean the drive heads with a cleaning
cassette after every 8 hours of use.
* When using tape cassettes that have already been used 5 times, clean
the drive heads with a cleaning cassette after every 25-100 hours of use
depending on the model. Refer to the Supplement to the Compaq DAT
Drive User Guide for the appropriate number of usage hours for your
model. However, if the Cassette In Place status LED flashes green,
clean the drive heads even before 25-100 hours of use has elapsed.
* A green LED flashes when cleaning is required. However, it is
acceptable to clean the drive more often, even if the green LED is not
flashing.

----

There's actually more in the manual on cleaning (the word "clean" occurs 68 times!), but those are the highlights.

So, you had said:
> I have been told to only clean when the indicator light comes on.

As you can see from all of the above, you were most likely subtantially undercleaning, and that most likely accelerated the failure of

[CA713937]

> TAPES USED ARE 4MM x 120MM DDS-120 8GB imation and maxell

Those are DDS2 tapes, and you have a DDS3 drive. I couldn't find a reference to native format tapes in the Compaq manual, but this is what the HP DDS3 manual says:

---
The compatibility between drive models and cartridges is summarized in the table below. However, please note that although HP Surestore DAT drives and autoloaders are fully backward compatible, old tape formats are more abrasive than later generations and using older tape formats can reduce the life expectancy of the device.
---

So using DDS2 tapes instead of DDS3 tapes also accelerated the wearout of your drives.

[LORI_27]

DAVID...INSTALLED ANOTHER TAPE DRIVE AND USED DDS3 TAPE AS YOU SUGGESTED,ALL WENT WELL AND CUT BACK UP TIME IN HALF. THANKS FOR THE INFORMATION! ONE MORE QUESTION, HOW DO I KNOW I GOT A GOOD BACK UP BESIDES THE BACKUP LOG? IS THERE A WAY TO MAKE SURE IT GOT THE INFO? THANKS AGAIN

[CA713937]

Lori,
The DDS/DLT/LTO/AIT drives all implement read-after-write, and therefore verify the data as it is written.

Some backup applications also have the ability to run a separate verify pass that will check that the data can be read back.