Cleaning Partitions And Auto Drive Clean - Spectra TFinity User Manual

Chapter 2 — Architecture Overview

Cleaning Partitions and Auto Drive Clean

Overview The cleaning partition provides permanent storage for cleaning
cartridges inside the library when the Auto Drive Clean feature is enabled.
This special‐purpose partition does not have an entry/exit pool or any
drives associated with it. A single cleaning partition can be shared by
multiple storage partitions.
Auto Drive Clean uses the cleaning cartridges in the cleaning partition to
provide library‐based cleaning of drives with minimal user intervention.
Automated drive cleaning results in fewer failed tape read/write
operations and is the preferred method for cleaning drives.
Drives in a partition with Auto Drive Clean enabled are cleaned no more
than once in any 12 hour period. The library posts a message if an Auto
Drive Clean does not occur because of the 12 hour restriction. If you want
to clean the drive immediately, you can initiate a manual cleaning.
Requirements The Auto Drive Clean feature requires a cleaning partition
to be associated with the storage partitions that contain the drives you
want to clean. Cleaning partitions are created separately and then assigned
to one or more storage partitions (see Creating a Cleaning Partition on
page 187 and Allocate Chambers and Drives on page 198).
Cleaning cartridges used in a cleaning partition must be stored in specially
labeled Maintenance TeraPack magazines. The cartridges themselves must
be identified with "CLN" at the beginning of the barcode on their labels.
The library prevents you from importing cleaning cartridges and
magazines that are not properly labeled into a cleaning partition.
Auto Drive Clean Operation The drives that are in a storage partition with
an associated cleaning partition are cleaned automatically when cleaning is
required. When a drive is unloaded in response to a host request and the
data cartridge is moved to its storage location, the library queries the drive
to determine if it needs cleaning. If cleaning is required, the library delays
notifying the host that the SCSI move command for the unloaded data
cartridge is complete while it performs an automatic drive cleaning.
During the delay, the library retrieves a cleaning cartridge from the
cleaning partition and inserts it into the drive. When the cleaning is
complete, the library returns the cleaning cartridge to the cleaning
partition and notifies the host that the SCSI move command for the
unloaded data cartridge is complete. The library then posts a system
message that the cleaning was successful.
In addition to automatic cleaning, you can use the BlueScale user interface
to initiate a manual cleaning operation using a cleaning cartridge stored in
the cleaning partition. Only drives in a storage partition that has an
associated cleaning partition can be cleaned using this method.
November 2020
Note: Software‐initiated drive cleaning operations cannot use the
cleaning cartridges stored in a cleaning partition; the cartridges
are not accessible to the storage management software.
Cleaning Partitions and Auto Drive Clean
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