Anyone using DLT, SDLT, LTO for archiving?

[Mariusz Cichon]

I was doing research and LTO is fastest. I just got it and like it a lot.
Email me offboard and I will let you know how is it working. I did not use it a lot yet so I don’t have strong opinion to share on public forums yet. I will do it sometime soon though 😉

Mariusz

[Bob Woodhead]

Couldn’t find your email anywhere…. Editingfx@gmail.com here…

Wondering about such things as:
– is a database of what’s on the tape stored on the tape, so that the tape could be read from any system with compatible drive?
– is the software cross-platform? does the same software need to be used for retrieval?
– what are the differences between using DLT, SDLT & LTO?
– anything else I didn’t know to ask?

[David Regenthal]

I have been using LTO-2 (and now LTO-3) for the past 18 months with the HVX200. I have had zero issues (losses) to date.

I do not know if there is cross-platform software. I use Yosemite Backup on an XP Pro workstation. As far as I know (haven’t tried) you can set it to store the catalog on the tape, but I think it would probably still have to be read-in by the same software on a different machine.

LTO is faster than the others–LTO-3 will backup a couple hundred gigs an hour. It is probably a more widely accepted (and long standing) means of tape backup (think banking industry, department of defense, etc.)

LTO-3 drives are backwards compatable (read/write) with LTO-2 tapes.

[Russell Lasson]

We looked at DLT-S4 because of tape cost vs. size. We finally decided to just go with hard drives because the cost of drives is dropping so quickly. So we buy two hard drives and keep them in separate locations.

-Russ

[Bob Woodhead]

I don’t feel secure for the long term using HDDs sitting on a shelf. Prefer a format that’s rated for shelf-life.

[Matt Gottshalk]

I agree, HDs are NOT long term archiving solutions, they WILL fail.Anyone who relies on them for anything other than a MID-TERM solution will eventually get bit.

I’m going to spring for the Quantum DLT-600a, since it has Gig-E and is MXF aware.

[Nate]

Your concern for hard drives sitting on the shelve is good to have. I have a drawer full of removable hard drives, quick access and lots of gigs. But just recently trying to retreive info from one of our stored drives failed. It would not mount or even spin up (even in different inclosures) That is why I try to always copy the important stuff to two removable drives.

On the other side of the coin, I also have drawers full of Syquest 80mb drive cartridges from the ’90’s with great archived graphics on them. But no operating drive and no current driver software. Anybody know how to download Syquest drives using OSX ?

[Richard Harrington]

We’ve started to use a Bluray burner

Discs are abut $12 for 25 GB

[Bob Woodhead]

Blu-ray = too slow, too small. Now that we’re using P2, the media archival goes WAY over 25/50 in a hurry.

I’d think that with the WIDE use of LTO in business IT, it should be compatible for a long time. And I’d be happy with maybe 10 years – enough time for a really large, cheap, fast archival medium to arrive.

But I guess I’d need to use Retrospect to create the archives…. (?)

[Edo Medicks]

Hi,
I am facing similar problem. a client i work for need to a. backup of what i daily work with (3-4 hour long dv\hdv projects, 30k+ imagebank, 150gb of music),

b. archive of all sort of tapes, from umatic to digibeta and hdv, hi8, audio tapes and what not.
now, this is a grate client ($$) and his data is of critical value (his definition ; not a dropped frame in a hundred years).
i have been digging a lot, and a non-final solution is such;
a. work on raid1, since i don’t need much speed for dv and hdv, with extra backup on external drive(*1), using lto3 for imagebank + audio backup (since it doesnt change too often).
outcome is my work is secured by raid1 + external + tape, common media by raid1 + tape.
now, for archiving the tapes, these things always fade into debate on dieing formats, hardware and os. lto and dlt tapes has the best longevity in those terms due to their IT usage, high cost and volumes. lto4 gets to 1.6tb (thats 2:1, expect 800-1100 for video).
my plan out of this equation?
build a basic system that can ingest and output to as many formats as possible, and last for the next 5-10 years, then it’s just a matter of hardware upgrade, since the software\data can be upgraded progressively.
a light-weight mac pro with a capture card, some local storage but not much, lto4 drive and some dry storage cabinets.
i digitize all the masters, then dub then to a common format like dv, keep them in dry cabinets, digitized stuff goes on lto tape (i didnt do the math, but 800gb per tape is much) and into dry cabinets. lto has another grate feature that video tape doesnt have; error correction. you cam cut off 30mm of tape and still be fine. video has little to none error correction. another thing, once i digitized them, quality is retained. i was planing on using the raw qt captures, maybe someone has a better idea?
then, at some point in the future, another freelance will have to find a way to convert all these ancien qt 7.3 files to something usable, but that is better then trying to find a 30 years old ntsc umatic player in a pal region.