Once a month, it is advised by the tech team to run a cleaning tape through your tape drive (if you still use tape backups).
If there are any orange colored LEDs on the tape drive, running a cleaning tape is the first step of troubleshooting. Most of the time this will fix the issue, but if it doesn’t please contact us and we’ll lead you through the next steps of troubleshooting.
Please also bear in mind that cleaning tapes have limited uses, and after this will need to be replaced. The average cleaning tape will last for about 50 cleans before needing to be replaced. Running the cleaning tape once a month is the minimum recommended time frame, though if the server is in a dusty environment, up to once a week could be needed. Anything more than once a week errs on the side of excessive and isn’t really neccessary.