Automatic Cleaning (Preferred); Manual Cleaning - IBM TS3500 Manual

The head of every tape drive in the TS3500 Tape Library must be kept clean to prevent
errors caused by contamination. To help you keep the drives clean, IBM provides a cleaning
cartridge with the library. Whenever a drive determines that it needs to be cleaned, it alerts
you with a message on the library's display or host console. The library uses the cleaning
cartridge to clean the drive with whatever cleaning method that you choose. In all methods,
cleaning is performed after the data cartridge has been unloaded from the drive and before
the next load.
Two methods of cleaning are available:

Automatic cleaning (preferred)

Automatic cleaning enables the library to automatically respond to any tape drive's
request for cleaning and to begin the cleaning process. The cleaning process is
transparent to any host application that uses the library. Automatic cleaning is
required, and cannot be disabled, in libraries with the Advanced Library Management
System (ALMS). For more information, go to

Manual cleaning

Manual cleaning requires that you select a menu option from the library's operator
panel or Tape Library Specialist Web interface to perform cleaning on one or more of
the tape drives. Manual cleaning is always supported, regardless of whether
automatic cleaning is enabled or disabled. For more information, go to
manual cleaning of drives in the
Parent topic: Overview
Related concepts
Web interface
Ultrium cleaning cartridge
3592 cleaning cartridge
Automatic
library.
cleaning.
Performing