10-24-2012 08:49 AM
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!
10-24-2012 09:01 AM
Check if you have scheduled a cleaning job.
10-24-2012 09:56 AM
I don't see any scheduled cleaning jobs, unless that is an option that can be set within another job.
10-24-2012 09:58 AM
Cleaning job is an independent job and it will appear in the job monitor.
10-24-2012 10:53 AM
Then no, we have no scheduled cleaning jobs.
10-24-2012 12:47 PM
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.
10-24-2012 01:02 PM
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.
10-24-2012 02:05 PM
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
10-24-2012 02:55 PM
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.
10-24-2012 02:58 PM
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.