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Cache-A and EditShare
Santa brought me a bunch of toys for Christmas. They’re not online yet, but I’m trying to get prepared for when they are.
I’m getting a Prime-Cache from Cache-A for backups and a shared storage system from EditShare.
Anybody here have experience with either product? Both products working together? Not sure how to organize or what the workflow is.
Any advice would be appreciated.
TIA,
Mike Raff
Richmond, VA -
4 Replies
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I do with Cache-A not editshare, though.
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Hi, Jeremy
Thanks for the reply.
I’ve my Cache-A Prime and a box of LTO-4 tapes, but I have the feeling I shouldn’t start archiving until I’ve got a well-thought out organizational system in place. Get off on the wrong foot and I’m screwed somewhere down the road. (Years ago, I used Retrospect and Mezzo, but that was back in my Media 100 days.) At the moment, I just copy files to external hard drives in the hopes that if my Mac or RAID ever fails, I’ve got backups on another drive on the shelf.
I am thinking my primary objective should be to backup all raw footage (generally P2) and all media files used in FCP projects. Secondarily, I’d like to archive the actual Final Cut project files. Wouldn’t hurt to create a disk image of a clonable boot drive periodically just to be safe, I suppose.
As for how to organize my archive, I’m thinking about dedicating a series of tapes to each client/product. So if I did car commercials, for example, I would have a Ford Fusion set of LTOs and a Toyota Camry set of LTOs. If we add a brand from an existing client, then that material goes on Toyota Prius LTO #1 or if we pick up a new client, then it’s Kia Optima #1.
Does this seem like a sensible arrangement to you? Or have you found a better solution?
I guess I’m asking this: how have you integrated the Cache-A into your business and your workflow?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks again.
Mike Raff
Richmond, VA -
Another question, Jeremy.
Does the Cache-A do incremental backups? What if I’ve previously archive a project’s media folder, but since then additional material has been added? If I drag the folder to the Source Directory, does it transfer the entire contents of the folder or just the newly added material?
Thanks.
Mike Raff
Richmond, VA -
[Mike Raff] “Get off on the wrong foot and I’m screwed somewhere down the road. (Years ago, I used Retrospect and Mezzo, but that was back in my Media 100 days.)”
Things have much improved since then. Think of the Cache as a file based hard drive system the difference being that the hard drive is a tape (of course it is way more complicated technically, but to the user, it does work like this). So, all of your files that are available on your system now can be archived and subsequently restored to/from the LTO4 tape. That means project files, media files, text files, and files that you need that as part of your project can be archived and restored with a Cache-A system (with no extra software needed).
As far as organization goes, it’s up to you and what makes sense to you. Since we work on project based jobs, I archive the whole project to one (or more) tapes depending on the size. If I can fit two or more projects on a tape, I do. I don’t compartmentalize the tapes, they are just one big pool of data. I can then search for what i want on the Cache-A catalog itself. It shows me the tape number that the media is sitting on, I put in that tape and restore only what i need (no reason to restore the whole tape anymore).
[Mike Raff] “I am thinking my primary objective should be to backup all raw footage (generally P2) and all media files used in FCP projects. Secondarily, I’d like to archive the actual Final Cut project files. Wouldn’t hurt to create a disk image of a clonable boot drive periodically just to be safe, I suppose.”
All that is possible, yep.
[Mike Raff] “Does this seem like a sensible arrangement to you? Or have you found a better solution?”
As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to know what is going to make sense for you. If that particular arrangement makes sense, then I say go for it. I tend to fit as many different projects on to a tape as possible within reason. My tapes are just numbered starting at 001. I then use the Cache-A catalog to find my media if I need to restore a project/media. The cache-A catalog is very rudimentary, but it does work. You can get cataloging software if you’d like. You can spend a lot for it, or spend a little for it. It’s up to you.
[Mike Raff] “I guess I’m asking this: how have you integrated the Cache-A into your business and your workflow?”
Here’s what we do. We have 4 machines that are editing at any one time. We also have an iMac that has a fw800 Sonnet D400QR5 raid attached to it. This computer is kind of the holding pattern for all of our archive (raid5 on the raid, mind you). This computer and the cache-a are on our network. Once a project is complete on any machine, I pare down the project to only the essential files I need to archive. I usually delete the myriad of web approvals, reference exports, etc, anything that is ‘disposable’ and I put the project folder and media folder in to one encompassing Project Folder. I then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone that folder to the iMacs raid via the gigabit network (runs about 80MB/sec give or take). And this is from any of our 4 machines. There’s a folder on the iMac raid to dump the encompassing project folders. At some point, I then go through that folder and make tape size archivable folders, which means I make folders that are 780GBs and under.
So once I have a TAPE_XXXX folder that is around but not over 780GBs I can then do a few things from here. The CacheA can access my iMac raid as a file share, this means that the Cache-A will pull the media over the network to it’s own internal hard drive where it will then write the data to tape. Or I can send the media to the Cache-A’s internal drive manually (again through the network) and then start the tape once it’s done copying. Once the tape is complete, I immediately make another tape of the same data set and call it BU, so it would be TAPE_XXXX_BU. That tape is then removed and stored offsite. Once two copies have been made, I delete the material off of the iMac raid.
The Cache-A can also accept direct connected hard drives, and also restore to connected hard drives. It will also recognize tapeless volumes such as P2/XDcam and archive those straight away as well.
It’s highly flexible and can fit many different situations.
I hope all this makes sense, if not, please ask away.
Basically, if you think of the Cache-A as your entire file system stored on tape, it becomes a little easier to fathom. But there are some caveats as it isn’t a hard drive:
[Mike Raff] “What if I’ve previously archive a project’s media folder, but since then additional material has been added? If I drag the folder to the Source Directory, does it transfer the entire contents of the folder or just the newly added material?”
You have to remember this is linear tape and not a hard drive so it will not only update the new material. You would either have to manually find out which files are only the new files and put only those on the tape, or you would restore the entire contents of the tape to the Cache-A drive, add the new files and then erase the tape and re-archive the entire project. Hope that makes sense.
I recommend plugging it in and playing with it. Just use one tape for now and see how it goes.
Jeremy
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