SL3000/SL8500 - General Drive Cleaning Management Information and Recommendations

Asset ID:	1-79-2075930.1
Update Date:	2017-09-21
Keywords:

Solution Type Predictive Self-Healing Sure

Solution 2075930.1 : SL3000/SL8500 - General Drive Cleaning Management Information and Recommendations

Applies to:

Sun StorageTek SL3000 Modular Library System - Version All Versions and later
Sun StorageTek SL8500 Modular Library System - Version All Versions and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

General Cleaning Management Information and Recommendations

Scope

Recommended options for drive cleaning support.

Details

SL3000

Configuration:

Three recommended options for drive cleaning support in the SL3000:

- For an SL3000 managed by ACSLS or ELS<HSC>, manage drive cleaning via the library managers. For ACSLS reference the administrators Guide for configuration information. For ELS reference Configuring HSC and VTCS.

- For an SL3000 managed by a third party via the Fibre interface it is recommended cleaning be managed by the library controller which can be configured and enabled by SLC or CLI. Reference the StorageTek SL3000 User's Guide for cleaning cartridge management.

- For Media Validation support, the drives configured in the media validation pool must use cleaning cartridges defined by the library controller even if the library controller is not managing general drive cleaning.

Note: It is also an option to manage cleaning cartridges via a third party software typically done by the back-up application by the use of tape alerts messages sent down via the drive's data path to the media manager. If one defines the drives using the Media Validation feature in the library, the only option is to clean those drives via the library controller. There is a wide variety of 3^rd party back up applications that can manage drive cleaning. If the customer decides to use a 3^rd party to manage cleaning it is a customer operational decision based on the customer’s preference and operational procedures.

Current issues:

- Code upgrade from FRS 2.30 to FRS_4.00+. The drive clean cartridge statistic is not preserved.

- It is not possible to enable warning thresholds for cleaning cartridges. SLConsole returns Invalid Parameter Value on any attempt to change the warning threshold value. The issue is resolved in 4.30+ code release.

- The library lose's the cleaning counts and auto-clean settings when upgrading from 4.00 to 4.30/31. This is due to a database change with the Media Validation implementation.

- At 4.3x reported that cleaning thresholds are being reset to 0 (default) shortly after being set.

- SL3000 using library based cleaning is not incrementing the cleaning cartridge count in SLConsole when a manual mount of a cleaning cartridge is initiated by the customer. Customer currently running 4.30 with SLConsole version 6.50.

Recommendations:

Prior to upgrading code, take note of cleaning cartridge usage as this info may be lost. After the upgrade, AutoClean may need to be re-enabled via CLI for each partition using it.

For example on partition 0:

SL3000> partition autoClean set '0-enable'

The single quotes are required in the command. See the complete command syntax by entering "help partition" at the CLI prompt. To display the cleaning status, enter the following CLI command that will display all configured features for all partitions, including Partition-0 for a non-partitioned library:

SL3000> partition attribute status *

SL3000 Library Auto Clean Process Summary<Use this option to the have the library code manage cleaning. Reference the User’s Guide for additional information.>

1. SLC > Select Tools > Configuration > Lib Config

2. Select Enable Auto Clean, and then click Apply.

3 SLC > Select Tools > System Detail > Auto Clean

4. Set the cleaning cartridge threshold.

5. Verify there are enough compatible cleaning cartridges in the library, see general cleaning recommendations below.

6. If necessary, enter or eject cleaning cartridges (see "Importing/Exporting Diagnostic and Cleaning Cartridges").

Note: If the library is partitioned, you can enable or disable library auto clean for each partition.

SL8500

Configuration:

Two recommended options for drive cleaning support in the SL8500.

- For an SL8500 managed by ACSLS or ELS<HSC>, manage drive cleaning via the library managers. For ACSLS, reference the Administrators Guide for configuration information. For ELS, reference Configuring HSC and VTCS.

- For Media Validation support, drives configured in the media validation pool must use cleaning cartridges defined by the library controller even though the library controller is managing general drive cleaning. Reference the StorageTek SL8500 User Guide.

Note: The SL8500 only supports HLI for library control and does not support library control via a native Fibre interface as done in the SL3000.

Current Issues:

- No current issues under investigation.

General Cleaning Recommendation:

- As a general rule we recommend 2 cleaning cartridges per drive type per library or partition. If using a high drive count greater than 24, recommend 3 cleaning cartridges per drive type per library or partition. The customer is responsible for media management so the policies can vary per customer site.

- In all cases the cleaning requests are managed by the drive microcode and based on drive usage and r/w performance.

- It is not generally recommended to manually load cleaning cartridges due to the potential of excessive wear to the drives r/w head. Cleaning cartridges are abrasive. Current drive technology relies mainly on the internal cleaning brush built into the drives.

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