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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 :)

HP has just made LTO5 a 1.5Tb thumb drive.

P

Paul J Steinberg

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Just an FYI. HP have released StoreOpen software for Windows (Linux and Mac already supported) for their LTO5 drives.

I'm only a brown-belt nerd and have been wrestling with backup software for LTO5. It's either been way too complicated or hasn't worked very well. StoreOpen effectively turns the LTO5 tape into a thumb drive so you can just drag n' drop files on/off it. Software is free and the tapes can be read by any LTFS software once you've copied your files to tape. Tapes store 1.5Tb without compression so it's a great way to archive my jobs.

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/solutions/storage-linear-tape-file-system.html


Cheers! :cheers2:
 
Any idea how data verification works with this? That's one of the nice things about BRU--pretty simple with easily confirmable verified backups.
 
Paul J Steinberg said:
Just an FYI. HP have released StoreOpen software for Windows (Linux and Mac already supported) for their LTO5 drives.

I'm only a brown-belt nerd and have been wrestling with backup software for LTO5. It's either been way too complicated or hasn't worked very well. StoreOpen effectively turns the LTO5 tape into a thumb drive so you can just drag n' drop files on/off it. Software is free and the tapes can be read by any LTFS software once you've copied your files to tape. Tapes store 1.5Tb without compression so it's a great way to archive my jobs.

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/solutions/storage-linear-tape-file-system.html


Cheers! :cheers2:
Click to expand...

Any equipment suggestions for us folks that dont own the technology yet, like LTO5 hardware and preferred tapes?
 
Jeff K and the knowledgeable folks will give you a better answer but I went with an HP Ultrium 3000 LTO5 Drive (http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/tape-drives-enclosures/product-detail.html?oid=4150350) as it seems very well supported. You'll need an SAS card to support it, I went with an Atto H680 (http://www.attostore.com/sas-sata-hbas/6gb-express-sas-h680.htm), also because it seems very well supported. The drive sure isn't cheap but I've been archiving to spinning drives up until now, I accidentally dropped one from about 1m height and it completely bricked. Two jobs gone. The next day I bought this drive.

Support from HP and Atto has been great. HP seem really keen to support the media industry with this technology and are putting their full support behind this LTFS format.
 
They really need to make a system that doesn't need a SAS card to operate. Thunderbolt, USB 3.0 and even eSATA are all more than fast enough for this stuff. It's pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
 
Not to derail this thread, but we are looking to upgrade our LTO-4 to a new LTO-5 and I'm wondering if anyone can explain the difference between the half heigh and full height external drives. For instance, why buy a HP 3280 instead of the 3000? Or is there really no difference besides price?

Thanks,
Walter
 
We've been archiving projects to bare drives for years (yes I spin them up every 6 months) but we also have been archiving those drives to LTO4. Its a slick system, we archive to 750 gig drives, then each drive gets mirrored to a tape. Problem now is that 750's are getting hard to find, so we get 1.5tb and partition it to 2 750's.

Right now I am being forced to use retrospect, but I am slowly trying to move away to either a Presstore or BRU alternative. Our Quantum is SCSI, yes, it would be nice to have a more common interface on our next drive.
 
I've just taken delivery of a Tandberg LTO5, recommendation of my mac solutions provider. It has unlimited backup for the life of the drive and can be mounted as a hard drive on the desktop. Apparently, that is as it is still in it's wrapping!
 
Unless I'm mistaken, this really just seems to be a GUI for LTFS management. LTFS has been around for over a year now, so it's certainly not "new." But it is nice that HP has gone through the trouble of designing a GUI for it.
 
Is LTFS compatible across different devices/os's ?

We are very seriously considering putting one of those in here, we are debating if we want to do compressed storage on them though. Any feedback on that?
 
M Most said:
Unless I'm mistaken, this really just seems to be a GUI for LTFS management. LTFS has been around for over a year now, so it's certainly not "new." But it is nice that HP has gone through the trouble of designing a GUI for it.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I was trying to implement LTFS on my own but it went waaaaaay past my computer knowledge. StoreOpen integrates right into Windows Explorer. You use a small utility to format a new tape when you drop it in and then all the rest is done right in Explorer, drag n' drop files on/off of it just as if it was a thumb drive. Very easy and in my correspondence with HP, it sounds like they are really keen to support the media industry with it.
 
Jarek Zabczynski said:
They really need to make a system that doesn't need a SAS card to operate. Thunderbolt, USB 3.0 and even eSATA are all more than fast enough for this stuff. It's pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, eating up a slot for a SAS board is a pain. eSATA or Thunderbolt (when it arrives for PC) would be nice and simple. The SAS connection has been very fast and very stable, maybe that is the simple explanation why they use it. Was easy enough to install.
 
Frank Cueto said:
Is LTFS compatible across different devices/os's ?

We are very seriously considering putting one of those in here, we are debating if we want to do compressed storage on them though. Any feedback on that?
Click to expand...

LTFS (to the best of my knowledge) is essentially open-source and cross platform. Previously if you were using BRU to backup your data, only BRU would be able to read the tape. With LTFS you can back it up on one system (say HP StoreOpen) and read it on another LTFS system (Brand X LTFS utility). Haven't tried that but if you drop in an LTFS tape StoreOpen does read the contents and pull it up without needing to have the catalog previously saved. From there you just drag n' drop the files off the drive to where you want them.
 
I think there is a some IT hocus pocus that goes into connecting 2x ethernet lines to one machine (binding/bonding or something). SAS is a bit of a pain that it eats a slot but it was pretty simple to set up. The Cache-A Prime-Cache-5 systems looks like it supports LTFS though.
 
Walter R said:
Not to derail this thread, but we are looking to upgrade our LTO-4 to a new LTO-5 and I'm wondering if anyone can explain the difference between the half heigh and full height external drives. For instance, why buy a HP 3280 instead of the 3000? Or is there really no difference besides price?
Click to expand...

The 3280 has hardware encryption. I'm not aware of any other differences aside from size.
 
As BRU says on its opening screen "It's not about the backup... Its all about the restore"

Dont muck around..... buy an LTO 5 drive and SAS card then install BRU. It is rock solid.
 
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