Archiving: LTO-3a vs. the cheaper spread: MXF important?

[Lars Wikstrom]

I have a VXA-320 firewire tape drive. Cost was only $850 when I bought it last Christmas. Works just fine with Retrospect and I can restore just 1 file and not the whole tape drive. Backing up already compressed video footage I get 160 gigs per tape.

I love the drive and never had a problem with it. Plus it is fireiwre and you don;t have to install any 3rd party cards.

-Lars

[Doug Nichol]

Jesse,
One question. I’ve looked through the P2 backups I’ve made to the LTO3-HH using Retrospect and you are right – a couple of the empty folders were not copied over. Everything made it expect the “Proxy” and the “Voice” folders which were both empty on the original files. I did another test and restored a back-up of archived P2 material from the LTO tape to my Xserve Raid. I then opened Final Cut did a Log and Transfer and everything was imported fine into a project. If the “Voice” and “Proxy” folders are empty in the P2 contents folder do you really need them? Also I looked into the BRU application, but it doesn’t back up to XServe Raid and only backs up 160-300G? My LTO tapes hold 400G of material. The new version of Retrospect seems to work great, but you are right about it not copying empty folders. Let me know your thoughts . Thanks.
Best,
Doug Nichol

[Matthew Romanis]

We have been using the LTO 3a now for 7 months and find it very useful. The MXF aware side of things is of little use to FCP, but the network connection is terrific. The Browser based interface is a little ordinary, a bit slow sometimes, and not being able to change window size is little irritating when navigating lot’s of folders. But in general very good and worth the bucks as a long term storage solution.

[Glenn Jones]

Hi Everyone

This is a commerical post – but am sure it will be welcomed!

Anyone in the UK needing MXF Aware, Quantum products?

I am a reseller, and am being supported on price by Quantum, which means I can currently knock off aorund 16% from the usual prices.

I also have ex-demo and refurbished units REALLY cheap

please let me know

GLENN JONES
01204 557666
http://www.craystone.co.uk

[Shaun Harrison]

Hi Lars,

I know this post is over 6 months old, but I’m really interested to know more about the VXA-320 tape drive. Is it portable? Therefore could be plugged into a MacBook Pro on location for back-up? And does it just mount like a standard external firewire drive would?

I would be grateful if you could help me in any way, I have a shoot in 2 weeks and want to create tape back-ups on location.

Would be great if you could e-mail me to give me further information – pictopictures@me.com.

Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing from you.
Shaun.