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Autoclean Frequency Backup Exec 2010 R3

Josh_Erquiaga
Level 2

Can anyone tell me what conditions will cause Backup Exec 2010 R3 to kick off a cleaning job? For some reason our cleaning tape was used 22 times in the last month, which seems way too often to me. I can't seem to figure out if it is an Inventory Job that invokes a cleaning, or if there is a setting somewhere to tell Backup Exec how often to clean. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

9 REPLIES 9

AmolB
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Check if you have scheduled a cleaning job.

Josh_Erquiaga
Level 2

I don't see any scheduled cleaning jobs, unless that is an option that can be set within another job.

AmolB
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Cleaning job is an independent job and it will appear in the job monitor.

Josh_Erquiaga
Level 2

Then no, we have no scheduled cleaning jobs.

Larry_Fine
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

You probably have a dirty or failing tape drive.  When the tape drive issues a TapeAlert indicating that it needs cleaning, BE will clean the drive.  Check your BE alert history.  Check your soft/hard read/write errors on the tape drive.  Your next step is probably to work with your hardware vendor or use the vendor diagnostics.

Josh_Erquiaga
Level 2

I looked through the alert history and couldn't find any tape alerts. On the drive statistics it lists 42 soft read errors and 62 soft write errors (that's apparently total for the life of the drive). I'm not sure how to interpret those. Is that a lot in the scheme of things for a tape drive? The drive has only been in use about 7 months.

Lesta_G
Level 6

Sounds like you have a tape library.

Some tape libraries can be configured indepenent of backup exec to clean on an error

That is how our IBM tape libraries are configured

Are you using the same brand tape as your tape library? I have seen HP tapes (for example) cause significant cleaning of an IBM Drive

Larry_Fine
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

No, those counts are not what I would consider as excessive.  The definitive authority is the manufacturer.

Others have posted here with counts in the thousands or ten-thousands.  That I would assume is bad.

Larry_Fine
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP   

Where is that count of 22 coming from?

If it is from BE, I would expect cleaning jobs or TapeAlerts or something to match up with that count.

I assume you have a tape library, have you run 22 inventory jobs of the library this month?  If you haven't marked the slot that holds the cleaning media as a "cleaning slot" (which exempts that slot from the inventory job), running an inventory job will indirectly clean your drive.