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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

LTO3A Data Back Up

BigHat

BigHat

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Having dealt with post for years and lost a number of drive, I keep asking the question of various manufactures "what about archive?".
Now that's a conversation stopper if you ever want to try it.
I have now set myself up a Quantum LTO3a system to archive my own material in my Avid and FCP suites and have been asked by a couple of RED user to back up their data.
This has worked out well so far and I have also added their edited projects to their tape so it can sit on the shelf until next needed.
If any Red users, editors, producers or data wranglers would like to have their data corralled at Big Hat Pictures, let me know.
We do other formats as well and can pick up, deliver or ship drives nationally.


Gary C.J. Schweikert "The Big Hat"
gary@bighatpictures.com.au
www.bighatpictures.com.au
 
Hi Gary.
Congratulations on a good initiative that might well prove useful for some shooters out there, as this will quickly turn into a huge problem as people will realise.
Just a question though, why did you choose LT03a, as it is incompatible with industry standard LTO3 drives that most post houses (such as ours) would have.
AFAIK, until very recently there was only 1 x LTO3a drive available in the Sydney post area (LEMAC, and they'd just bought it).

regards
Chris
 
GAry, looks good for an archive workflow but I believe the Ultrium LTO-3A (IPoE) I/F is very very slow compared with other LTO models, especially ULTRIUM LTO4 (which I have) but good for the field with say a MACBOOK pro or similar ;)

And as Chris points out the NON-compatible with other LTO series tape media

For anyone who's interested in ARCHIVE for R3D and other CMFs, there are a few active threads:

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17496 (to 4 pages now)

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7556 (at least 20 pages).

Active as of yesterday.

w
 
Chris,
Who has deigned that the LTO3 is the industry standard. What is an industry standard? That is what I find is a joke about the television industry, whenever anyone tried to implement a standard, there are far to many other with financial interests who think they know better and deviate?
My decision was driven by the fact that, having used Avid for years and still love it, MXF is my format of choice from capture and post. LTO3A LOVES MXF and can read, store and retrieve metadata almost instantly, even find time code of rushes to partial resort of files. Not to mention that it is seen as a network drive so it sits on my network and a simple and quick interface to archive and restore.
I have done Red back ups, and although it is not as flexible as MXF, it still give you instant almost instant access to the metadata at the head of the tape.
I'm not worried that everyone else has other solutions. This one works for me and I just want to offer the service to people who don't want to invest thousands into a device they may only use once in a while.
Many broadcasters who use P2 with godzillians of Gbs of data use LTO3A, just because it is MFX/metadata away, and not just a dumb box. I know that the Avid 'Newscutter' has a 'Send to Quantum' preset.
My atitude is that an archive sits in a safe somewhere and will be there long to see me out of the indusrty.
It is a far more expensive solution, in set up, but the network interface and metadata functionality does it for me.
Gary
 
W,
Non compatibility is not an issue for me, I don't see the need to use archives in many different locations.
Speed, 'very,very slow' On my gigabit network I consider it more than adequate. Recently, I backed up 63Gb of R3D files in 26 minutes.
It is an archive, it's valuable and IMHO, deserves the time and care with the flexibility that the 'A' series drives give,
Gary
 
guys,

what is the most tiny, cost effective LTO system? specifically one i can stick on a laptop or directly to a mac pro...i'm a freelancer but starting to get terrabytes of data hanging around.. and any recommendations of a reseller in Sydney?
 
Hi Gary. Not knocking your choice, just querying it since you're offering it as a service!
Tape standards (like many things) are usually dictated by the number of people that subscribe to a format, whether that might be deemed rightly or wrongly by some.... its probably the right choice for them at the time.

DLT & DTF were the "standard" for many post houses for a long time, until data sizes became too large.... (I won't go near TV tape formats, been there done that in the past, and we're talking data anyway). LTO2 and LTO3 have been stable film post industry drive formats for a few years now.

LTO3a is fairly new, and I've already knocked back the data delivery from one (RED) shoot because of the incompatibility of the LTO3a format with our current "standard use" LTO2 and 3 drives, plus there was only 1 machine in town!

I've been involved in data transfer (film files etc) for quite a while now, and seen through most of the formats. We deal with many suppliers of image files as well as those we create ourselves.
Archiving is an enormous task (one day we can chat about what I did at the NFSA for a few years.. :-) ) and even now my room is littered with tape formats from old Exabytes & Metrums through to DLT's, DTF1/2's and LTO2/3's.

If LTO3a works for your system and meets your needs, then that's what matters for you, and as I said, great initiative. If you can help others with the service, that's great too. Wish you well. We aren't competing for anything here.

And if your tapes can be played safely after 5 years, then that's great... after about 10 its about minor miracles.... we all face the same problems there.

This can be a bottomless discussion.... always interesting but no real right or wrong way to go about it, just different ways. I'll stop here... :matrix:
 
macka said:
guys,

what is the most tiny, cost effective LTO system? specifically one i can stick on a laptop or directly to a mac pro...i'm a freelancer but starting to get terrabytes of data hanging around.. and any recommendations of a reseller in Sydney?
Click to expand...
Whatever works for you and is compatible with the next step in your chain for data transfer / be that broadcast, film post, or other need such as archiving that Gary has offered. Ultrium LTO is used by finance industry (banks etc) for archiving as well as post houses for data transfers, so the format is very sound.

Look at what your needs might be and do the research on who you are likely to deal with... you want to have some alternate options (other people) available to help if your drive goes down.

Suppliers... most computer suppliers dabble in some sort of tape backup systems now. Ultrium LTO is relatively cheap, LTO4 is available (I think around 800GB uncompressed per tape), LTO3 is about 400GB....
Google it... there are suppliers in Sydney such as Storm FX that supply drives, there are plenty of others, have a look here for some format options.

Chris
 
We used KeyOptions to help with the decision (and they're awesome) but might be too upscaled for what you're looking for?? As Chris has already stated, LTO4 is the latest generation at 800GB; but LTO 3 and even LTO2 might be feasible--certainly their prices are dropping a lot--could even go second hand (being mindful of the associated pitfalls).
 
I just got back from a month in Hong Kong with a Macbook Pro and LTO-3A unit, data wrangling a kung fu feature I'm also editing.

I found it to be solid as rock. It transfers at about 2gb per minute (definitely works better on larger filesizes). I was able to do a dump to a RAID drive then two LTO-3 copies of every mag - and still leave the set with everyone else which is rare. If you're experiencing slow transfers it could have something to do with your network settings. Best to disable airport etc. and set a manual 10.0.0.something address for the ethernet port.

Quantum have indicated that in the near future the LTO-3A format will allow MXF searching with RED files - allowing you to do partial restores based on timecode. It works with P2 already - hopefully now that the RED SDK is out support for R3Ds will follow.

Just be sure to update the server and drive firmware to the latest versions. Prior to that we had some major issues and some lost data - it's all good now though. Also, it's not recommended to use 3rd party FTP clients - best to use the built-in Java client thru Safari or similar.

I had the unit in a small Pelican case that could also fit 8 tapes. Really happy with the workflow. And nothing feels safer for your data than linear tape IMHO....
 
Folks,

We have a custom-made case for the LTO-3A that is part of the Fieldmaster system:

http://silverado.cc/shop/product.php?productid=997

If you already have the drive, but need a rugged case--let me know. We can get small batches of the cases made up.

Torrey
-----------------------------------------------
Torrey Loomis
President & CEO - Silverado Systems, Inc.
Outfitter to the World's Foremost Apple Professionals
2600 East Bidwell Street, Suite 280
Folsom, CA 95630
(916) 760-0032 • FAX (916) 404-5258
torrey@silverado.cc
http://www.Silverado.cc

Check out our StudioBuilder blog at http://silveradosys.blogspot.com
 
 
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=25180
Click to expand...

warwickt said:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21284
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24522
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17496
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7556 (very long and detailed thread)
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23545
Click to expand...

Would anyone happen to have the PRMUs (Post-Reduser-meltdown-URLs)? Just bought a LTO-3A and while waiting for it I´d love to read up on issues/tips/tools.

Did I understand it correctly that it takes standard LTO-3 tapes, but those tapes cannot be read by normal LTO-3 drives, only 3A (and 4A and presumably 5A) drives?
 
Martin, that's correct. The 3A unit from Quantum uses standard LTO-3 tapes. The data written to the tapes within the 3A unit are only readable by other 3A units and by the new LTO-4A hardware from Cache-A.
 
Thanks Jeff.

Another noob question: if I want to use the Gigabyte (sp?) ability of the network, can I use the same LAN cables as before, or do I need different ones?

Right now the office network has only 100M, but the G5 has 2 Network ports, and I was thinking of connecting it directly to the G5.
 
And a more hypothetical question. Do I understand it right that the LTO-3A uses a standard LTO-3 drive plus some added hardware.

If the drive should fail in, say, 10 years - could it be replaced with a LTO-X drive, and the hardware would still work? (Probably not, as the bus will likely change...) - But, could it be upgraded to a LTO-4a by swapping the drive?
 
In order to upgrade to gigabit ethernet, all the network wiring will have to be up to spec -- this is Category 5 rated wiring and connectors for 1000BASE-T gigabit standard, but most people opt for Category 5e to over-spec a bit. For 1000BASE-TX you need Category 6 or better. Of course, all switch hardware would have to be upgraded as well.

You will definitely want to get the LTO-3A drive connected via gigabit, at least to the Mac Pro that will use it most. That way you can take advantage of its native bandwidth of about 65MB/s or so. If you're still on 100Mbps ethernet, you will be limited to about 12MB/s to the LTO drive! The drive may be able to link directly to one of the gigabit ports on the system via a "crossover" cable or you can always pick up a simple gigabit switch to connect the drive to a couple computers. 5-port gigabit switches are dirt cheap these days, less than $50 here in the USA from the big-box stores that overcharge.

As for the hardware, it's hard to say just what Quantum has done. It's a standard LTO-3 drive mechanism in there, but it most likely has modified firmware on the drive unit itself in addition to the 3A appliance hardware surrounding it. I think it unlikely that you would be able to simply put any other LTO-3 drive in there if the tape mechanism should fail. And you won't be able to drop in an LTO-4 mechanism.

Quantum has discontinued their A-series program and will probably cease support for the LTO-3A products once all the warranties run out. The A-series format and rights to all things related are now owned by Cache-A. They are the ones producing the LTO-4A drives, which offer backward compatibility with Quantum LTO-3A tapes. They have claimed that they will be making the A-series formats for LTO-3A and LTO-4A tapes openly available at some point. Hopefully they will, then it will become easy to read and write this format on any LTO system with supporting software.
 
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