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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 :)

LTO tape drives for MacPro?

Aloha,

Has anyone used Tolis Tape Tools for OSX? They are suposed to allow you to use TAR or CPIO to a tape drive in OSX.

http://www.tolisgroup.com/products/macosx/ttt/

It is all command line, but you end up with a tar ball on the tape that any TAR enabled system in the would should be able to read. I would like to find someone who has used it before I buy.


Mahalo,
Dusty
 
Dustin Cross said:
Aloha,

Has anyone used Tolis Tape Tools for OSX? They are suposed to allow you to use TAR or CPIO to a tape drive in OSX.

http://www.tolisgroup.com/products/macosx/ttt/

It is all command line, but you end up with a tar ball on the tape that any TAR enabled system in the would should be able to read. I would like to find someone who has used it before I buy.


Mahalo,
Dusty
Click to expand...

I've got a lot of experience with it's sister product; Tolis BruServer, which is basically a server-client version. I use Tape Tools on my MacBook Pro occasionally - all their products are accessible by the command line whichever edition. Check out their manuals - lots of tools and useful functions.

We've deployed BruServer in quite a few production suites and networks we've designed over the last few years, and found it trouble free, and straightforward. I normally combine it with Adic (now Quantum) Scalar 24 autoloaders, but Tolis' products are compatible with virtually all tape drives and autoloaders.

I'd advise a Disk-Disk-Tape strategy, with mirror RAIDs for working space, stripe RAIDs for archive space and an autoloader for tape backups.

If you've got the budget, look into fibre channel, take a look at Apple Xsan and consider stringing your storage and tape autoloader together with it.

Expensive to begin with, but long term it's robust, and won't let you down when you're up to your neck in it...

Ad.
 
Enough to make a sysadmin cry...

Enough to make a sysadmin cry...

Just a little math to remember guys. REDCODE RAW will be about 100GB/hr. ProRes 422 1080@30 will be about another 100GB/hr (if you use that). If you shoot 5hrs in a day, you are talking about 1TB/day... per camera. Two cameras would be three LTO-4 tapes per day. :wacko: And that's just for backup. If you want to actually use it, you will need a primo RAID system. Two cameras could fill up a 10TB Xserve RAID in under two weeks of only RAW or ProRes clips. An option like Xsan is something people are going to have to take a look at.

I wouldn't doubt that, if you shoot and edit tens of hours of footage for each project, that the camera system will be the cheapest thing you have! :ohmy:

-Mark
 
LTO-3 to desktop for Mac / Win XP

LTO-3 to desktop for Mac / Win XP

Stuart English said:
Not LTO, but Quantum's SDLT 600A is a roughly equivalent Mac OSX compatible product that connects to your computer network via GigaBit Ethernet. I have seen it working wth a MacBook Pro as well as tower style Macs.

www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/DLT/SDLT600A/Index.aspx


I was told that at NAB Quantum announed that this product family would be available with an LTO-3 drive this Summer. Same Gigabit Ethernet interface and Mac / Win deskop compatability.

Details to be confirmed...

www.quantum.com/AboutUs/PressReleases/index.aspx?FullStory=1
Click to expand...
 
nobodySpecial said:
Just a little math to remember guys. REDCODE RAW will be about 100GB/hr. ProRes 422 1080@30 will be about another 100GB/hr (if you use that). If you shoot 5hrs in a day, you are talking about 1TB/day... per camera. Two cameras would be three LTO-4 tapes per day. :wacko: And that's just for backup. If you want to actually use it, you will need a primo RAID system. Two cameras could fill up a 10TB Xserve RAID in under two weeks of only RAW or ProRes clips. An option like Xsan is something people are going to have to take a look at.

I wouldn't doubt that, if you shoot and edit tens of hours of footage for each project, that the camera system will be the cheapest thing you have! :ohmy:

-Mark
Click to expand...

The most simple solution to that, is a differential backup. If you backed up everything on a daily basis, your RAID drives will be constantly hammered by the tape drive.

Basically, backup your raw footage to tape once, and then backup your scratch/working space on a differential basis daily. Then, backup your finished project files.

I'm utterly paranoid, and hate deleting source files. This way, you get your cake and half penny - a stack of tapes for your source, a tape a day for working and when you're finished, a few tapes with your project, and for the paranoid, the original stack of source tapes.
 
I talked with a Quantum guy about that thing - it has an FTP server, which is hilarious :sick: but I suppose makes sense. The whole gige thing is cute n' all but frankly I'd prefer some nice eSATA taps and FW800 with a "proxy volume" setup for OSX/Win/Linux.

Also it was $8k.

AIT5 is higher capacity (it would hold a red drive per tape) and cheaper for the drive:

http://www.superwarehouse.com/Sony_AIT_e1040s_AIT-5_External_Tape_Drive/AITE1040SLE/p/1489278

um, by a lot.

If you're archiving 16TB that's about $0.32/gb. Not bad.
If you're archiving 40TB that's about $0.22/gb.

etc.
 
Adthrawn said:
The most simple solution to that, is a differential backup. If you backed up everything on a daily basis, your RAID drives will be constantly hammered by the tape drive.
Click to expand...

I agree that you wouldn't want to do full backups of everything every day. If you shoot only about 10hrs per project, then not a real problem. If you are a broadcaster that shoots 5-10hrs per day every day, then storage will be a real issue. That's all I was talking about. :biggrin:
 
I hate to be this guy.. but.. can we have a summary?
I read through the whole thread but I'm still not sure what the main viable options are, especially at what price points.

If someone who actually knows something about storage (rather than myself having a ham fisted stab at it) could do this I'd be in their debt for ever.
 
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