Backup & Archival Plan–eSATA, SAS, & BOB.

[Robert Broussard]

[Ramona Howard] “I must be reading the post entirely wrong….
“

Yes, it’s now obvious that you have. Gosh, I carefully worded my posts to avoid any confusion; yet, to no avail…. ouch!

[Ramona Howard] “It’s not the $3k for just the backup unit, that’s reasonable, it’s everything else you expect to get out of it for that price.

Just remember if you have 1TB of data that needs backing up, you need more than 1TB to do it in Raid, throw in the fact you want to possibly hot swap these out to double as an archival solution and all with using a cheap controller. Good luck with that. There is a slew of implications you may not be considering with that scenario. “

Ramona, you missed my point entirely. As I mentioned, I plan to use a dedicated multi-drive enclosure (sans RAID) specifically and exclusively for backup/archive. Also, I plan to use up to 6 TB of storage to give me an on-site redundancy and off-site backups. Also, I never intended, implied or, stated that I wanted to use a cheap controller. In fact, I mentioned controllers from two companies that Bob considers “terrific products”. Where are you getting this El-Cheapo-Frys-Mentality from?

[Ramona Howard] “Bob and I share the same passion when someone tackles an important issue (such as this one) with budget first and answers to a real solution second. First ask what solutions do it already and work your way down, you will find it easier to get the answers you need and or find out how difficult it may be to build your own, if you can get the answers to do it. “

Ramona, I have never: mentioned, implied, or stated that budget was first. Actually, I started by presenting the situation and asking for a recommended solution–independent of budget. Then, Bob wanted to know “how much money [I] would like to spend… So, I speculated about the possibilities… thought out loud so he could understand my quest for a great solution… I gave some numbers and showed the thought process and the calculations…. clearly this possible solution was just to plug some possible numbers in and to answer Bob’s question. Also, this should have clarified (if there had been any doubts) that I wanted to identify a great solution and/or strategy independent of the costs.

[Ramona Howard] “The Frys comment comes into play because it appears your determined to Frankenstein a solution together because it seems so easy to do with off the shelf components…

Ramona, I’ve articulated my situation and possible solutions very clearly. What did I say that you interpret as my being determined to, “Frankenstein a solution together because it seems so easy to do with off the shelf components…”???

Thanks,

Robert

[Ramona Howard]

I guess it was that whole shopping list of parts, prices and the portable cases and such that thru me off.

Best of luck,
Ramona

Bob, will share the Bravo stuff soon, it will make your hair stand up even more 🙂

[Bob Zelin]

Robert –
you have received many answers here. There are simple solutions, you simply take your credit card, and buy a solution. There are lots of companies that are advertising right on this forum, that can sell you exactly what you want.
You can go to the http://www.bhphotovideo.com website to get a quick idea of what prices are for these products. RAID 5 will cost you more money than RAID 0. And any RAID 0 product can be used as a JBOD if you want to use single drives. All the port multipler cards can hookup to 4 SATA chassis, for a total of 20 seperate drives. You can do any combination that you like.

All of these products work –
Dulce Systems
Maxx Digital
Cal Digit
Firmtek
Sonnet Technologies
G-Tech
and of course, SpectSoft, but this is out of your price range.

If you simply list your company phone # here on this forum, you will be flooded by companies calling you to sell you their product.

Bob Zelin

[Robert Broussard]

[Bob Zelin] “you have received many answers here. There are simple solutions, you simply take your credit card, and buy a solution. There are lots of companies that are advertising right on this forum, that can sell you exactly what you want. “

Bob, while I appreciate your response, I’m surprised and disappointed that my direct questions (that were posed more than once) have gone unanswered and that a healthy discussion that involved multiple solutions where one or two are compelling… did not arise. I was hoping to learn something that I did not already know. I was hoping that you would unleash your wisdom in this area to suggest the best solution. Much of what I received was a confusing rant that had nothing to do with what I said….. it was like mistaken identity or something.

Okay, I will try a few simple questions:

1) Have you had any experience with the new tray-less enclosures? Thoughts?

2) Is their a clear benefit for a RAID 5 rig to be capable of HD Uncompressed performance when my current need is: SD video (assume uncompressed), Aperture library, etc…?

3) Can I use a single SATA II/SAS card to support 2 enclosures (1 backup & 1 media)? Assume that the backup drive is a PM SATA enclosure (4-5 bays) and that the media drive is a RAID 5 protected. I assume that I can since the ATTO ExpressSAS R380 seems to state such functionality.

4) What are your clients using for media backup? I know we normally don’t have to backup very much media but with the advent of tape-less workflows–what are your P2 clients using for backup/archival? What’s the strategy?

Thanks,

Robert

[Joe Murray]

Robert,

Here’s what we do, for whatever it’s worth…

Backup: daily backup of projects drive to an external Wiebetech trayless enclosure with a 500 gig drive (projects drive means anything we can not recapture from tape or from a P2 project media backup drive from the shoot). We use Super Duper software which is adequate for this.

Archive: Quantum LTO3A, which is ethernet connectable and can be seen as a network storage device by any computer on the network. An ftp client is used to drag and drop each finished, consolidated project to the drive. The drive’s a bit finicky at the moment but its record speeds approach 70 megabytes per second and a 400 gigabyte cartridge is about $50. We store these in a FireKing fire-resistant lateral filing cabinet, but the cartridges could just as easily be moved offsite. Disk Library software is used to create and maintain a searchable database of each cartridge on a central computer in the machine room.

Doesn’t sound like you need HD capable storage at the moment, so you might as well wait and let prices continue to get better, and buy when you really need it.

Hope this is helpful in some way-

Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC

[Robert Broussard]

[Joe Murray] “Backup: daily backup of projects drive to an external Wiebetech trayless enclosure with a 500 gig drive”

Hi Joe! 🙂

Do you use the singe-bay or the 4-bay? How do you like the tray-less enclosures? What interface connects this RTX box to your Mac? Do you rotate backups or have more than one backup? What are you backing up, I assume it’s a RAID o some kind–yes?

When you archive, do you have more than one copy of the media before erasing the RAID? What Disk Library software do you use.

[Joe Murray] “Doesn’t sound like you need HD capable storage at the moment, so you might as well wait and let prices continue to get better, and buy when you really need it.
“

Yes, I could do that; but, I think that I could benefit from a media drive that is protected via RAID 3 or RAID 5 or some other RAID. Of course I will still perform daily backups that get rotated off-site. So, are you thinking that I would benefit very little with a fast (much faster than required) drive setup–such as HD capable with an SD workflow?

Sorry for so many questions. Yes, your comments are very helpful.

Thanks,

Robert

[Robert Broussard]

[Ramona Howard] “I guess it was that whole shopping list of parts, prices and the portable cases and such that thru me off. “

Parts?

🙂

R

[Rich Campbell]

Hi,
As mentioned, there are many storage solutions for backing up data. As Medea storage arrays had accomodated these needs in the past, the same local storage arrays are available from AVID Technology at the same great price with the same great support.

Rich Campbell
AVID Technology, Inc.
Technical Support
Video/Storage Division
805-584-8743
richard_campbell@avid.com

[Bob Zelin]

here are my answers to your questions.
You can contact me privately at maxavid@cfl.rr.com, and give me your phone #, and I will be happy to explain everything to you. You will wind up buying something from someone – anyone, or you will be punished –

1) Have you had any experience with the new tray-less enclosures? Thoughts?

REPLY – stop it. Just stop it. Enough nonsense questions.

2) Is their a clear benefit for a RAID 5 rig to be capable of HD Uncompressed performance when my current need is: SD video (assume uncompressed), Aperture library, etc…?

REPLY – is there a clear benefit of RAID 5 (or RAID 3 or RAID 6) – of COURSE there is – if you use a JBOD or RAID 0, and the drive dies, you lose all your media. RAID 5 will protect you from a failed drive (so will RAID 3 and RAID 6, and if you want to know the differences, you will email me privately). There are no CHEAPER RAID 5 arrays for SD video only. All the SATA RAID 5 arrays are fast enough to do anything, and you won’t save money (nor can you find a cheaper RAID 5 solution) if you “only” need SD backup.

3) Can I use a single SATA II/SAS card to support 2 enclosures (1 backup & 1 media)? Assume that the backup drive is a PM SATA enclosure (4-5 bays) and that the media drive is a RAID 5 protected. I assume that I can since the ATTO ExpressSAS R380 seems to state such functionality.

REPLY – YES YES YES. Products from Sonnet, ATTO, Maxx Digital, Dulce Systems have TWO ports on them, so you can hook up 2 4 bay chassis, and get RAID 5 protection on both of them. If you want to spend LESS MONEY, you can get conventional port multipler cards from Sonnet, Cal Digit, Firmtek, Dulce, etc. and have up to FOUR 5 bay chassis (for a total of 20 drives). These are NOT RAID 5 protected. The only port multipler card that does RAID 5 is the Highpoint Technology RocketRAID 2314 card. This card is MUCH more complicated to use than the newer RAID 5 SAS SATA cards, but it costs less money. Email me for for info.

4) What are your clients using for media backup? I know we normally don’t have to backup very much media but with the advent of tape-less workflows–what are your P2 clients using for backup/archival? What’s the strategy?

REPLY – P2 clients backup to FW800 in the field (typically), and then transfer to SATA to actually work. I try to encourage new clients to get SATA for the field, but most want to use cheaper FW800 drives with no Slot 34 adaptors for their MacBook Pros.

The bottom line here is that RAID 0 will be cheaper, and RAID 5 will be better and safer (but more expensive). If you are willing to suffer (education wise), you can use the RocketRAID 2314 card and get RAID 5 in a port multipler chassis, but most people want things to be VERY EASY, and this solution is not very easy. If you want mindless “just plug it in and go” – you will use a conventional port multipler card for JBOD or RAID 0, or the newer RAID 5 SAS/SATA soltuions from Dulce, Cal Digit, Sonnet, etc.

I know the CHEAPEST way to do all of these. Simply email me.

Bob Zelin

[Joe Murray]

[Robert Broussard] “Do you use the singe-bay or the 4-bay? How do you like the tray-less enclosures? What interface connects this RTX box to your Mac? Do you rotate backups or have more than one backup? What are you backing up, I assume it’s a RAID o some kind–yes?

ANSWER: I have a Caldigit HDPro RAID 5 4 Terabyte unit that serves as the main media drive. I do not back this up, trusting that if a drive fails I will be able to rebuild data by replacing the drive. The Wiebetech unit I use is the single-bay model and I connect with firewire (USB on our PCs) and use this only to back up the Projects drive on each computer, which houses project files like Final Cut Pro and After Effects project files, Photoshop & Illustrator files, basically anything that can not either be recaptured from tape or rerendered from a graphics projoect file. I figure that with any Final Cut project, the project file itself will give me all the information to recapture a project from tape, which is another reason why I do not back up the Caldigit RAID. I use Super Duper to back up the Projects drive (an internal drive but not the one I boot from) and run this backup every evening.

Q: When you archive, do you have more than one copy of the media before erasing the RAID? What Disk Library software do you use.

ANSWER: I only keep one archive of the project. I do recommend to all clients that they have two final masters, one kept at my office and one at theirs. Many of the projects we do are commercials or short form communication pieces and have a fairly short shelf life of a year or so – and they expect that over time formats will change and older projects may eventually become less than useful for future updates.

Q: So, are you thinking that I would benefit very little with a fast (much faster than required) drive setup–such as HD capable with an SD workflow?”

ANSWER: The amount of benefit you derive from a faster array depends on the kinds of work you do. Fast drives speed up everything…searching the Caldigit RAID for a wayward file is lightning fast compared to searching one of the internal drives. And if you use Final Cut Pro it will create a realtime profile of your system that will allow you to have more realtime layers the faster your drives are. Of course FCP’s version of multiple layers can look really bad sometimes, but that’s a different subject.

It sounds like you require a much more robust backup process than I do. Good luck with your solution.

Joe Murray
Edit at Joe’s
Charlotte, NC