Validity of Validation Results

When an exchange failure occurs, there can be uncertainty whether the problem is with the drive, the media, or both. The STA drive calibration and qualification features directly address these uncertainties, providing you with assurance the failed validation is a result of the media, not the drive.

Ensure Health of Validation Drives

Because validation drives have a higher-than-normal number of exchanges with problem media, they may become degraded at a faster rate than production drives. Through drive qualification, STA continuously verifies the health of validation drives. STA identifies drive problems early so you can service or replace the validation drives before they begin to cause problems with production media.

Automatic Verification of the Validation Drive

When a media validation fails, and if drive calibration and qualification is disabled, you must manually verify why the media validation failed. If drive calibration and qualification is enabled, STA verifies all failed validations through the process of drive qualification. Qualification is done automatically with no user intervention. Because STA uses pre-qualified media, it is only necessary to do a Standard Verify for the qualification, which takes significantly less time than a Complete Verify.