How many hours of use before I need to clean a tape drive?

Have you used the tape to restore any data and had any errors? Or is there any software you have that will do a read/write test and compare the values for errors?

I know that some of the HP tape drives have self-cleaning mechanisms on the drive itself, though I have no experience with your specific model.

However, if you take good care of your tapes, they tend to take good care of you. I had some tapes from 2002 that we used to test a device in June, and they still worked.

Maybe not an answer, but food for thought.

We have lots of LTO-2 drives scattered around the north west of the UK. On average we find they need cleaning every two months, that is with doing a backup 5 days a week so that would be after about 50 backups. How many hours use that is I'd have to guess. Say an average of 6 hours per backup so that's 300 hours use.

However it does seem to depend a lot on the site. Some sites need to clean the drive once a month or even sooner, whilst others seem to go months and months without a clean. I suspect it depends on how dusty the environment is and how careful the staff are in handling the tapes.

I am surprised that you haven't cleaned the drive for 4 years, but I suppose with only 1,600 hours use that's just about plausible. If you're at all concerned about the drive performance download the HP Library and Tape Tools tester from the HP web site and do an acceptance test. If that comes up green HP think your drive is OK!

JR

There is no hard and fast rule to this. When the drive detects too many errors it will tell you it needs cleaning. Don't let the idea of errors worry you, as some errors are to be expected and modern tape systems use write multiple interlaced copies, each with error detection/correction bits. This is why they are so much more reliable than hard drives.

How often you need to clean depends on a number of factors, mostly environmental. If you have a good clean server room you may go anything up to a couple of years between cleans. A dirtier environment will necessitate more frequent cleanings. As an example, at one company I had to clean every couple of months. After relocating to new premises the same drives, using the same tapes, would go at least a year and a half between cleans.

Some tapes will also shed more or their oxide layer than others, so will result in more frequent cleaning. You may also notice that when you start a batch of new tapes you will often need to clean more often than with tapes that have been used a few times. This is because new tapes tend to shed a bit, then settles down after a few uses.

I am using the HP Ultrium 2 single and Ultrium 3 robot drives for 8 and 4 years respectivelly. From my experience, cleaning depends on how often you use the drive and also how dirty the environment is. You should (as the manual says) really clean it when the yellow LED is on. There should be no harm if you clean it sooner, but bear in mind that the cleaning tape has a limited number of uses.

I had an LTO3-Drive wich worked about a year without cleaning.
After the first cleaning was needed, I talked to my vendor and
they suggested to insert the cleaningtape once a month.
So, you may check this with your vendor (HP), too.

Best regards.

From experience, read the drive's manuals, and do what they recommend. A while ago I was cleaning a HP DDS drive when its cleaning light said to, and it eventually stopped working, and was replaced under support contract. The tech who replaced the drive asked how often I cleaned it, and told me to ignore the light and follow the manual.