Trouble with tape drive

[ipmanyak]

Hello.

I have standalone tape drive ( not a library) HP StorageWorks LTO-5 Ultrium 3280  SAS.

For the last 7 days it requested the cleaning cartridge of 5 times.

This tape drive  works more than 5 years and writes on a tape for 15 hours every day.

What happened?   

The resource of head  ended? Or a head so strongly became soiled that the cleaning cartridge helps not for a long time?

1. What to do ? 

My backups can't successfully finished.

2. I have another  standalone tape drive ( not a library) HP StorageWorks LTO-5 Ultrium 3000 SAS.

Now it isn't connected to my server.

How to step by step to enter this device into operation and to reassign all tape pools on it?

Software  Symantec Netbackup Enrerpise version 7.5.0.6 ( Windows 2003 )

[Michael_G_Ander]

1. The best option is to get the supplier to look at this drive.

2. Follow the steps in the suppliers installation guide and then in the netbackup device configuration guide. Don't think you need to move the tapes as both drive are stand-alone.

[StefanosM · Accepted solution]

if a tape drive starts to ask for cleaning tape again and again, or the drive has a problem or there is a problematic tape.

If the previous days the same tape was used, change the tape as first troubleshooting step. It is better to test the drive with a new tape.

if you need to change the tape drive, do the following.

• write down the density of the faulty drive (hcart or hcart2 or hcart3)
• delete the old tape drive from netbackup, and disconnect it from the server
• connect the new drive to the server and check that it is viewable from the OS. (install driver if required)
• run the device installation wizard from the netbackup GUI and configure the drive to netbackup
• check the density of the new drive and, if need it, correct the density to match the density of the faulty drive ( from media and device management -> devices -> drives, right click and select properties).
• no other steps needed. Run a backup to test the drive.

[mph999]

In a nutshell, I strongly suspect your tape drive heads have worn out ...

[ipmanyak]

Is there  somewhere  information  about a resource of heads of streamers ? I found nothing in Google.

[Marianne]

I doubt that this type of detail will be available on the Internet. If you can get hold of a maintenance manual for this make/model tape drive. But what would you want to do with it unless you have received training to service /fix tape drives? Fixing tape drives is not a DIY job.

[StefanosM]

have you done a "deep cleaning"?

Deep cleaning is to clean your drive 3 times, one after the other. Try it

[ipmanyak]

Service on repair of streamers told me: "The head has a resource about 5 years, loses degaussing as the cleaning tape doesn't clean it, and degausses!"

This is true?

[ipmanyak]

> Deep cleaning is to clean your drive 3 times, one after the other. 

ok. I try it tomorrow .

But if head has a resource about 5 years and tape doesn't clean it, and degausses then it does not help.

[StefanosM]

I'm working with tapes for more than 15 years and what I know is that tape drive heads are electromagnetic heads.  The drive use electricity to write to and read from the tape. There is no such thing as degaussing a tape drive.

On the other hand you can ruin a tape by degaussing it.

I suspect that what the engineer told you is that often cleaning a tape drive can damage the drive. which is not often but true.

[Genericus]

Stupid question - did you check your cleaning tape?

They have a maximum uses, if it is at maximum, it never ran the clean, so it just asks again....

I have LTO5 drives and they have worn faster than normal, the clue I see is that as the head wears they generate write errors, and the drives counts read/write errors and requests cleaning after so many errors within 24 hours.

I track the cleaning requests - mine should be about every two weeks.

The bad thing is that cleaning tapes are abrasive and make the head wear worse, so as the heads go bad, they clean more, that makes them more worn, and they spiral down to oblivion.

When I see more than 3 or 4 in a month, I have my tape vendor test the drive, it fails and they replace it.

[sdo]

Top tips by a top admin.   Good working practices you have.    :)

[Greek-God]

Please follow the technote mentioned below to replace the tape device , It might help - 

How to update NetBackup for a replaced tape drive without deleting and re-adding the drive - https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH34296.html 

https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH94243.html

[ipmanyak]

StefanosM   I tried deep cleaning. Didn't help.

Yesterday I remove  my old tape drive  Ultrium 3280  and connect new  Ultrium 3000 SAS. 

Test job run and wrote to the tape successfully, but the job requested not the first active tape from the list of the active tapes, A00028 was requested.  Now by the command:   available_media.cmd > #availablemedia.txt in this list I have:

NetBackup pool                                                               
                                                                             
A00006    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00021    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00022    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00023    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00024    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00025    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00026    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00027    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00028    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00029    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    
A00030    HCART2   NONE      -      -     -     -     -    AVAILABLE    

....

I cannot freeze or suspend tape with label A00006 coz it has not  information.

How to resort and assign a tape with label A00021, A000022 ...  for the next jobs with  SLP .

[sdo · Accepted solution]

With standalone tape drives you do not have to mount the tape that is requested, instead you can load any tape wihich is writeable - i.e. any tape in the same pool as being requested, of the same retention (assuming mixed retentions is not enabled), which still has space, which is not write-locked - or instead is a scratch tape from the ScratchPool.

If you want A00006 to cease being requested, then just delete volume A00006, or create a new pool named 'BadMedia' and manually assign A00006 to the 'BadMedia' pool.

[ipmanyak]

Apparently the head really degraded. Capacity of tapes at me gradually decreased. Recently on a tape it was written 900GB-1.1TB instead of 1.4TB. Now on a new streamer it is accurate 1.49TB

[mph999]

The read heads are positioned after the write heads.  As the drive writes, it then reads it back.  THis is all invisible to the OS and backup software.  If it detects an issue, that is it cann read what it writes it trys again - if successful, it keeps going.  This uses a bit more tape I believe, and if this happens a lot, quite a bit of extra tape is used, which I suspect is why the tape capacity has dropped in this case.