LTO-4 drive, BRU & HBA?

[Taylor F.]

I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding LTO-4 backups.

I run a small production company in northern British Columbia and my needs are pretty simple: I have a 6TB Raid array that I'm constantly filling up, and I want a safe, reliable solution to archive footage and projects to.

From what I can gather from these forums, BRU software would be my best route.
Given that I'll be backing up incrementally, as needed, and total files per tape will be well under the 100,000 file limit, would BRU LE be adequate for me for now, or will I require BRU PE? From the Tolis Group website, it sounds like LE is limited to 250GB/archive session? Not quite sure what this means.

I'm thinking of getting this drive:

http://www.provantage.com/quantum-tc...b~7QUAT0AT.htm

And running a Mac Pro – what sort of HBA would work for me? Is it possible to use a 4-lane PCIe card, or is x8 required?

Last question: Would I be able to connect a USB drive to my Mac Pro and archive the contents to tape with this setup?

Any help to point me in the right direction is appreciated.

Taylor

[Alex Carr]

DO NOT buy into Quantum, the latest Firmware is no longer supported. I've given up trying to get it to work. Even on windows. I can't get my LSi updated to support the new Quantum firmware. Quantum does not have support for osx as the previous firmware did, Yet Quantum didnt work at all on Atto H380. I had to buy a Hp LTO-4 Deck. And thats as solid as it gets, I used to use BRU LE. BRU PE has more options, but LE can do the job too. I'd go for Hp if you want it to work as soon as you open the box.

[Taylor F.]

Thanks for the reply, Alex.

When you say the latest firmware isn't supported, are you referring to the model A Quantum drives (as opposed to the model B drives)?

Tolis Group mentions this on this page:

http://www.tolisgroup.com/products/s...le/devices.php

Or should I forget about Quantum altogether?

[Kaku Ito]

I had the old firmware for my halfheight Quantum LTO-4 and it was working fine with LSI card but not with ATTO R380, then I had it updated to the latest then it is working fine with R380 now. Not that I want to recommend Quantum but just to inform you that I'm having working unit/firmware.

[Kevin Wild]

Forget Quantum & Retrospect altogether and call Bru for a turnkey solution! We struggled forever with the Quantum/Retro combo and were left hanging with a ton of tapes that their new version won't even support. It's VERY ugly.

We switched to Bru's solution and it has worked flawlessly...without any errors on any tapes. Can't recommend more highly.

Good luck.

Kevin

[Nir Shelter]

Hey guys
Does anyone have experience with Tandberg decks? What do you think of these as LTO options?
Thanks,
Nir.

[Alex Carr]

I had the old firmware for my halfheight Quantum LTO-4 and it was working fine with LSI card but not with ATTO R380, then I had it updated to the latest then it is working fine with R380 now. Not that I want to recommend Quantum but just to inform you that I'm having working unit/firmware.

I'll give it a try! I gave up over 9 months ago.

[Kaku Ito]

I haven't had any bad experience like Kevin did but so far, I made few 800GB backups with no error at this point. If you don't mind trying then please do so, but we should take Kevin's warning carefully, too.

[Taylor F.]

Thanks for weighing in, guys.
This is one area where it pays to be a little extra careful, hey? I'm happy hacking my way through most things, but LTO is sort of a last-line of defense for your data.
Maybe an extra $1,000 for a turnkey BRU system is a small premium to pay for a reliable setup, but therein lies my wondering.
I guess what I'm really trying to decide is if I can get a really basic LTO system running for around $2K, without compromising on the robustness of it all.

It's great to hear other people's experiences with this stuff - the decision to go with BRU and not Retrospect was an easy one, reading through these forums.

Anyway, time's running out - I'm getting to that point of losing sleep, worrying about all my terabytes.

(But I'm off on a wildlife shoot tomorrow morn, so I'll be incommunicado for a week...)

Taylor

[Andreas Herzog]

I would also check out the "new" LTFS . Its supported on LTO5 drives. Is open source and are supported on all platforms.