Methods of cleaning drives

This section describes the methods of drive cleaning supported by the TS3500 tape library.

The head of every tape drive in the tape library must be kept clean to prevent errors that are 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 is 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 Automatic cleaning.

Manual cleaning

Manual cleaning requires that you select a menu option from the library's operator panel or Tape Library Specialist web interface to clean 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 Performing manual cleaning of drives in the library.