Removed Drives and Media

By default, drives and media that have been removed from the library environment do not appear on the STA screens — they are not listed on the Overview screens, and they are not included in aggregations on the Analysis screens.

You can, however, selectively turn on the display of removed drives, removed media, or both through the Data Settings preferences for your username. Your selections take effect immediately, so depending on your needs, you can selectively show or hide removed drives and media throughout your login session. See “Getting Started” in the STA User Interface Guide for instructions on changing these display settings. See “Removed Drives Screen Examples” for detailed examples of the display changes.

Even if you choose not to display removed drives and media, their associated data continues to be used in calculating rolling 30‑day summaries and the current day’s daily summaries. See “Impact to Summaries” for details.

Data for removed drives and media is never removed from the STA data store. See “Data Retention” for details.

Identifying Removed Drives and Media

If you choose to display removed drives or media, they are identified by the following attribute values:

•

The STA Stop Tracking date indicates the date and time when STA determined the drive or media no longer exists in any of the monitored libraries. Because there may be a lag between the time when a drive or media is removed and when the library notifies STA of the change, this value may differ slightly from the time when the item was physically removed.

•	The Library Number attribute is set to “‘‑1”.

•	The following attributes are set to “REMOVED”:

•	Library Complex Name

•	Library Model

•	Partition Type

•	Partition Name

•	Physical Address

Removed Drives Screen Examples

This section provides examples of the impact of the “Show Removed Drives” settings on the following screens:

•	“Drives Overview Screen”

•	“Drives Analysis Screen”

•	“Exchanges and Cleaning Activities Screens”

Note – While these examples are restricted to removed drives, the same principles and screen display characteristics apply to removed media and the “Show Removed Media” settings.

Note – These examples include four removed 9840A drives, and the screen displays are filtered and arranged to highlight these drives.

Drives Overview Screen

In EXAMPLE 1‑1, the “Show Removed Drives” setting is selected. Removed drives are listed on the Drives – Overview screen, and the total number of records includes the removed drives.

EXAMPLE 1‑1 Drives – Overview Screen, Show Removed Drives Setting “On”

In EXAMPLE 1‑2, the “Show Removed Drives” setting is deselected. Removed drives are not shown on the screen. The total number of records does not include the removed drives, and a sort by “Drive Library Number” shows no drives in library “‑1”.

EXAMPLE 1‑2 Drives – Overview Screen, Show Removed Drives Setting “Off”

Drives Analysis Screen

In EXAMPLE 1‑4, the “Show Removed Drives” setting is selected. Aggregated data for removed drives are included under the headings Library Complex Name “REMOVED” and Drive Library Number “‑1”.

EXAMPLE 1‑3 Drives – Analysis Screen, Show Removed Drives Setting “On”

In EXAMPLE 1‑4, the “Show Removed Drives” setting is deselected. Aggregated data for removed drives are not included in the table. There are no headings for Library Complex Name “REMOVED” and Drive Library Name “‑1”.

EXAMPLE 1‑4 Drives – Analysis Screen, Show Removed Drives Setting “Off”

Exchanges and Cleaning Activities Screens

The Libraries – Exchanges and Drives – Cleaning Activities screens always show exchanges involving removed drives, regardless of how the “Show Removed Drives” option is set. All screen attributes indicate the values at the time of the exchange.

In EXAMPLE 1‑5, the “Show Removed Drives” setting is selected. The “Drive Serial Number” entries for removed drives are active links to the Drives – Overview, Detail View screen.

EXAMPLE 1‑5 Libraries – Exchanges Screen, Show Removed Drives Setting “On”

In EXAMPLE 1‑6, the “Show Removed Drives” setting is deselected. The “Drive Serial Number” entries for removed drives are dimmed and are not active links.

EXAMPLE 1‑6 Libraries – Exchanges Screen, Removed Drives Setting “Off”

Impact to Summaries

If you remove a drive or media from a library, the data collected for that resource continues to contribute to the daily and rolling 30-day summaries displayed on the STA screens. There are a wide variety of summary attributes calculated by STA, such as megabytes read, written, sent, and received; number of drive errors and drive cleans; and percent drive utilization.

For example, removing a drive from a monitored library at 17:00 on April 15 will have the following impacts:

•	Daily summaries — The drive’s activity for April 15 before 17:00 is included in the day’s daily summaries. Because the drive has been removed, it will not have any activity to include in daily summaries for April 16 and beyond.

•

30‑day summaries — The drive’s activity is included in all 30-day summaries for April 15 and the next 30 days, although the number of days’ activity included will be reduced with each succeeding day, as the 30‑day window moves forward. The 30‑day summary on May 15 will be the first one that does not include any activity for the drive.