StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library
 

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Cleaning Media type

In this Document

Symptoms

Changes

Cause

Solution

References

Created from <SR 3-11374409271>

Applies to:

Symptoms

Unable to mount cleaning media to clean drives.

Changes

 Old cleaning media replaced by new.

Cause

Incorrect media type used
L1 media type used

Solution

Customer was seeking to use the 'L1' media type as a cleaning tape. e.g. CLNU01L1 , rather than the required CU media type. e.g. CLNU01CU.

'CU' is the only recommended value for cleaning media type label. The prefix CLNUxx or CLNxxx is not recognized as a cleaning media type on it's own.

Since the auto-cleaning feature was put into the 2.50 code the only supported cleaning tapes are the official "CLNUxxCU" labeled tapes.

There are only two cleaning cartridge label types out there: CLNxxxCU and CLNxxxL1. L2 and above were never actually made standard (although there are references to CLNxxxL1 being HP-specific, L2, IBM-specific and L3 being Certance-specific in our literature, but we only proposed it, and never actually implemented it).

The problem arises since IBM prefers CLNx##L1 format in their libraries, where "x" is either "U" for universal cleaning tapes or "I" for IBM-specific cleaning tapes. SpectraLogic follows the same format as well.

StorageTek always used "CU" for universal cleaning cartridges, HP and BDT followed the same standard, while Quantum accepted all.

SL150 2.50 firmware simply dropped all support for media marked as L1 and L2, since none of the drives ever supported it (LTO5 is the original offered generation and only supported L3, L4 and L5).

Reference:
http://www.bluestore.hu/public/3_inicializalas_es_cimke_rendeles/42-IBM%20Ultrium%20LTO-SER%20Label%20Orderguide.pdf (IBM LTO cleaning tape reference in an order form)
https://www.fujifilmusa.com/shared/bin/LTO_Drive_Cleaning_FAQ.pdf (part of Fujifilm's more or less original cleaning tape whitepaper)

Note: It can take a while for new labels to be ordered and shipped to a customer. Refer to the following link for the option of making their own labels.
It can take a while for new labels to be ordered and shipped to a customer, so how about making life easier for customers?

http://php.kelvin.nu/software/barcode/

Oracle cannot endorse external sites, but we can always use it on our own to generate a sheet of cleaning labels for a customer.
For convenience, you could generate two sheets of CLNU labels (one on A4 paper, one on Letter) and attach them to the knowledge document for customers to print their own (blank sticker paper and manual cutting required).

See 'Barcode Label Technical Brief' Doc TT0006 for examples and specifications.

References

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