Library Auto Cleaning-Sl500

[bkup1234]

Hello All,

I  recently taken over this site and we  have a  SL500 library here whic is setup for auto cleaning and is directcly attached to a media server . But it appears it is not cleaning  regularly. The cleaning tape status in the library if I check thru the console shows "warning". I also see that there is a  cleaing tape defined  on the netbackup  Master runing on 7.5.0.6. which is assigned to the None pool and when I do an inventory it lists out the cleaning tape as well. How can I setup this library correctly to operate with  auto cleaning. Looking at the previous posts suggests that the tape should be in the reserved slot of the library ? how can I ensure that. I also see lots of tape alert messages int he media error logs. I manually cleaned one drive which  has a tape lert on but  even after cleaning the drive  manually and resettng the flag it again had a tape alert.

depply appreciate your suggestions and recommendations.

Thanks

[mph999 · Accepted solution]

If a tape drive still throws a cleaning tape alert after cleaning, then it is probably faulty, clean it one more time, Nd if the issue still exists, it's log hardware call time. 

Tape alerts by definition are sent from the drives themselves, nothing to do with the operation system or any backup software.

I'm not that familiar with the SL500, however some libraries have dedicated slots for cleaning tapes and so your thoughts are probably valid, just check the library documentation to be sure.

You can move the tape manually, open the door etc ... or the library console, then inventory NBU as the cleaning tape has been removed ... NBU won't know about the special cleaning slots, so it will disappear, and should be deleted from NBU (it will show as non robotic) .   Robtest won't move the tape to a special cleaning slot as our will be unaware of it.

If the tapes are defined as a  cleaning density that matches the tape drive density, is in the none pool (as you mention) and importantly has a none 0 number of claims left then NBU should clean the drives, perhaps check the number of claims left.

TBH, although my preference is to let the library clean the drives it really makes no difference, the only difference between the two is who initiates the loading of the tape.