You can perform the following operations for drives contained in a tape library:
- Share drives: Perform this operation to share a drive with multiple MediaAgents.
- Validate drives: Perform this operation to validate the drives. This operation performs all the standard operations, such as mounting the media, writing on the media, re-winding and seeking data and then reading back from the media, to ensure that the drive is functioning properly.
- Unload drives: Sometime hardware errors may cause a media mount failure, making a loaded media inaccessible. Perform unload dive operation to remove the affected from the drive. You can also perform this operation to unmount a loaded free media, when you need to free up the drive immediately for some other use.
- Clean drives: Perform this operation to clean a drive immediately.
- Reset drives: Perform this operation to unmount the media mounted in the drive, thereby making the drive ready for use. This operation resets the status of the drive and also unmounts any media loaded in the drive. However, the reset operation will fail if the drive is reserved or in use.
- Mark drives as fixed: In certain cases, the status of a drive is marked as Offline when the number of hardware errors exceeds the preset threshold values established for the drive. The Offline Reason indicates that a threshold was exceeded. In such a situation, you must identify and correct the related problem. After the problem is addressed, use the Mark Drive Fixed option, to bring the drive online. In addition, performing this option also resets the following counters: number of hard errors since clean and number of soft errors since clean.
- Mark drives as cleaned: Perform this operation to mark a drive as cleaned when you clean the drive manually using the menu options in the library front panel instead of using the Clean Drive option available in the software.
- Mark drives as replaced: Perform this operation to replace the drives that are subject to extended use or because of hardware failure.
Procedure
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From the Command Center navigation pane, go to Manage > Storage > Tape.
The Tape page appears.
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Click the tape storage for which you want to perform operations on the drives.
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Select the drives, click the Actions button
, and then select the operation you want to perform.Complete the next steps specific to the drive operation that you selected.