Archiving Video Projects via LTO LTFS

[Mike Drew]

Mac or PC?
for Mac, Yoyoatta https://yoyotta.com/yoyottaid/main.html
Tollis BRU producers Edition https://www.tolisgroup.com/bru-pe-archival-and-client-deliverables-software.html

MAC & PC Pre Roll Post https://www.imagineproducts.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=9

I am sure there are others

HTH

Mike

[Jacob William]

Once you’ve decided to create an LTO/LTFS archive, there are some things you need to consider in order to be successful with it. It’s not the same as copying files onto a hard disk and sticking it in a storage closet. The mechanics are different, so there are a few more steps, and there are rules associated with LTFS that require some forethought.

One thing to know is that LTO tapes are raw media that do not come formatted, so you have to format them before you can use them. You can format using terminal commands — a cumbersome process that few would undertake — or, when formatting for LTFS, you can do it using LTFS software. After that, any hardware that has LTFS software installed will be able to read the LTO tape. One of the defining characteristics of LTFS is that in the process of formatting, it partitions the tape so that one section stores the actual content and the other section stores an index of metadata. The index allows the tape to be self-describing, which improves archive management. It also helps ensure organizations are compliant with broadcast networks that require indexed tapes.

Another consideration is whether to format the drive in compressed mode, and the short answer is “no.” Operating in compressed mode is useful in the IT industry when backing up things like documents and text files. But in the media industry, where nearly all video files are already compressed into a format that saves space, there’s little to be gained by formatting a tape in compressed mode. In fact, it can slow down the writing and retrieval processes considerably.

[Markus Hergenroether]

Thanks for your answers.
I did know parts of that.

My aim is to make it as foolproof as possible. I do not know who will operate that, so it should be as easy as possible with little to no possibility of error. Command line commands are not the preferred choice for that.

Therefore I would like a little software doing all the things like formatting and writing and verifing the data. To be on the safe side of retrieving the data, it would be very important that the software creates a database with all the archived files as a searchable catalog.

It can be on a MAC, but PC would be the better choice.

[Neil Sadwelkar]

What did you end up going with?

I’ve tested LTFS implementations and found them to be troublesome, particularly with large number of files – DPX, ArriRaw, OpenEXR sequences. Some LTFS implementations are database driven so if you lose the database, then you lose the ability of being able to search for files/folders across a large number of tapes. For restoring several years later.

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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India