Dell LTO-4-120 LTO Media Handbook - Page 16

The cleaning light on an LTO drive turns on for the following reasons: • A periodic maintenance threshold has exceeded. - If the tape drive has processed the number of equivalent FFP, including read and writes for the generation of the drive (this can be converted to TB) before reaching the maximum MM. - The drive has processed the maximum MM for the generation of the drive indicated (MMxE6) before reaching the maximum amount of data that can be processed. • A high error rate has occurred. This can happen due to the following: - A head clog - A hardware failure on the drive - Bad or marginal media NOTE: If you perform a backup with verification, you see a cleaning request twice as frequently as you do when you perform a backup without verification. Verification doubles the number of passes the tape makes over the head. NOTE: Most backup applications support Tape Alerts. If the tape drive requests cleaning, the backup software notifies you of the need to clean. Characteristics of Expired LTO Cleaning Tape Table 9. Characteristics of Expired LTO Cleaning Tape in Various Drives Drive Type Cleaning with a Good Tape Cleaning with an Expired Tape Dell PowerVault • Ready light blinks green. 110T LTO • Use cleaning cartridge light turns on. • Ready light blinks green. • Ejects tape out shortly after inserting. • Ejects tape when done. Dell PowerVault 110T LTO-1 • Power light on solid green. • Power light on solid green. • Activity light on solid • Activity light on solid green. green. • Status light blinks amber. • Status light on solid amber. • Ejects tape shortly after inserting. • Ejects tape when complete. 16 LTO Media Handbook