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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 :)

New LTO4-A drive

M

Mark L. Pederson

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We had a phone conference with the guys from Cache-A yesterday -

Features on this new product are stunning - priced same as original price of LT03A drive.

http://cache-a.com/products.php

There are several key features NOT on their website yet which include:

* Built-in searchable database – the drive remembers all of the tapes it has seen.
* Network file system with mountable volumes – our tape drives now appear as a networked hard drive via NFS, SMB, or AFP.
* 4 new interfaces – USB, Firewire, PCI ExpressCard, eSATA let you plug many new media type directly into the drive. All interfaces are not on all models.
* Automatic timed backups of select network directories.
* Cartridge spanning – allows keeping data sets of any size in 800GB multiples.
* Fully multi-user for workgroups.
* Standard TAR format so tapes can be read on any LTO-4.
* 800GB/cartridge and greater than 50MB/s transfer rates.

VERY exciting product.
 
Excellent report, Mark!

The additional connectivity and the TAR format have me sold as long as their pricing isn't way out of line. I'm curious about their "A-Series" naming and that one of their founders was formerly with Quantum. Reports are that they have licensed the A-Series specs, etc. from Quantum. So it's odd they would pursue a TAR-based format readable by other drives.

Did they happen to say if it's possible to use these drives as conventional tape systems? In terms of standard tape device interface with software like BRU, etc..?

As for using the tapes on other drives, a lot of people here have standardized their OSX backups lately on LTO-4 with BRU software. On the Mac Tolis Group also offers Tolis Tape Tools as part of BRU-PE. TTT will let you work with TAR arcives.
 
http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=392931&postcount=143

Yup, I heard from my local dealer the same thing:

"Rumor is that it will be bundled with some version of both HD-Logger and the Pictron stuff. We've had reasonable success with installing the LTO3a's, both the desktop and 16-tape SuperLoader units. There'll be no SuperLoader on the new 4a stuff. Mark Ostlund heads up Cache-a; he had been product manager for the 3a at Quantum, but left and licensed the rights to the new 800G/tape systems. The software is smart enough to keep track of media on multiple bar-coded tapes, so finding stuff 6 months down the road should be a snap."

Should be under 8K.
 
Under $8K for what? And if that means $7995 for a single HH unit with eSATA or gig-E connectivity, then I'll respectfully pass. For the same money, I can equip 2 workstations/servers with their own LTO-4 SAS unit and software and still have enough left over to buy some tapes... like a 40 of them if I choose HP units with ATTO contollers or 50 tapes if I go the Quantum + LSI route.
 
Lessons that these guys could learn from Quantum... Apparently from Mark's post above, they have learned some of these lessons.

Multiple interface options. eSATA is a good thing.

Ability to read their format in other LTO-4 drives (Quantum's LTO-3A tapes use a proprietary data format)

Hopefully, Cache-A will make their units actually work properly with an FTP client. Quantum's FTP interface is still incomplete and buggy as of 2 months ago.

Pricing... The Quantum 3A desktop unit, and even more so the SuperLoader-3A would have sold like hotcakes if the pricing were reasonable. But it's not. Before switching to LTO-4, I build a SFF PC with internal RAID and a Quantum LTO-3 HH tape unit. It was only about 10% larger than the Quantum-3A and I could mimic all the same features, plus it was a lot faster. Oh, it also worked as a nice DIT box for direct offload of footage with the ability to lay off to tape or write to Blu-Ray / DVD at the end of the shoot. And it would run Redcine. ...it was half the price of the cheapest LTO-3A unit I could find at the time. I sold it to another fellow reduser, who is still using it with great success. I'm thinking of building another for myself, but I'm kinda set in my current workflow ways here for now. Maybe if I pick up some bigger jobs as DIT I'll do it and put an LTO-4 in it next time around and solid-state storage.

These are the units that every industry needing a robust and convenient backup solution has been waiting for! These are not niche products, no need to price and market them as such.
 
Hi Jeff,

I need to buy an LTO-4 tape drive in the next 10 to 15 days. Would you still recommend the HP-1760 or have you come across something better that is currently shipping?

-shooter
 
I'm no expert, but my HP 1760, card and BRU Server are humming along as I speak on the Mac Pro. Never a hiccup. Backs up and archives my Mac and PC files with little effort. My 2 cents...

Mike
 
I recommend HP 1760 with the ATTO H380 SAS card. If you also want to be able to use the SAS card for more, like connecting a RAID or other hardware, take a look at the R380 or the new R6xx cards.

Or if you want a cheaper deal that works pretty good, the Quantum desktop kit is a one-stop-shop solution. About $2300 after shipping and it does work -- that's what I'm personally using and have been happy. But the drive doesn't play nice with other controller cards for some reason and the included LSI card is crippled because it only runs off of the very basic driver that Apple includes with OSX so you can't tweak block sizes, etc.. without it crashing your system.

NAB is in less than 30 days, so I'm sure we'll see new products announced. But I think an LTO-4 is a safe bet now as it's available tech that is working reliably.
 
Hi Jeff:

If I've got to use the HP 1760 with a G5 (because that's what my RAID is attached to) what card can I use? I don't think the ATTO H380 SAS is supported.

-shooter
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The additional connectivity and the TAR format have me sold as long as their pricing isn't way out of line. I'm curious about their "A-Series" naming and that one of their founders was formerly with Quantum. Reports are that they have licensed the A-Series specs, etc. from Quantum. So it's odd they would pursue a TAR-based format readable by other drives.
Click to expand...
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Lessons that these guys could learn from Quantum...
Click to expand...

As VP Product Development at Cache-A, I wanted to clarify a few points. All the founders were formerly with Quantum and responsible for their first generation A-Series products - and we did learn many lessons along the way.

We have licensed Quantum's IP and product line name to develop the LTO-4 generation product - select the News Tab at cache-a.com for details.

Jeff Kilgroe said:
Hopefully, Cache-A will make their units actually work properly with an FTP client. Quantum's FTP interface is still incomplete and buggy as of 2 months ago.
Click to expand...

I can't speak for Quantum, but I expect this to work properly on our product.

Jeff Kilgroe said:
Pricing... The Quantum 3A desktop unit, and even more so the SuperLoader-3A would have sold like hotcakes if the pricing were reasonable. But it's not. Before switching to LTO-4, I build a SFF PC with <snip>
Click to expand...

Not everyone can or wants to build their own solution, but there is no doubt you can do it less expensively than any manufacturer can build a product. Construction, selection and installation of applications, development of workflows and maintenance all take time and expertise and for many, that's worth $$'s

Something you can't build in your basement is a broad-based format for portable tapes that anyone can read with built-in table of contents which includes content metadata.

Our new products have many new benefits to consider - networked multi-user access to the tape drive (yes, multi-user tape) - a mountable volume that acts like a virtual tape so you can do your lay off from anything on the network - a built-in database - a complete plug-and-play appliance.

Jeff Kilgroe said:
These are the units that every industry needing a robust and convenient backup solution has been waiting for! These are not niche products, no need to price and market them as such.
Click to expand...

Hopefully we're doing something close enough that folks will think it's worth what we are charging - so far it looks like they will.
 
A-Series said:
Hopefully we're doing something close enough that folks will think it's worth what we are charging - so far it looks like they will.
Click to expand...

I hope so, too. I'm very eager to see these new units. Most all my commentary above was based on criticisms of the Quantum LTO-3A. Hopefully most or all of those issues are addressed.
 
Chris Parker said:
what is the msrp?
Click to expand...

MSRP will be $7995

Roberto Lequeux said:
So would this translate to savings on just getting the tapes made?
If so, what would 12TB cost for just the tapes?
Click to expand...

LTO-4 Tapes cost the same regardless of whether you write them with one of our systems or any other. Depending on where you go, they seem to range from $45-60. At 800GB native per tape, 12 TB would be about 15 tapes or about $750.

Remember that this is an archive on 30 year media - your 12TB array has no such archival life (the best HDD warrantees are 5 years for a reason).
 
Pass, I can get a box full of WD 2TB drives for that. .. and the rw GMR head is in a dust proof place also.
 
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