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Cache-A Prime Cache expertise?
We have a Cache-A Prime Cache (LTO-3) archiving device that we made good use of for 6 or 7 years. Since then, we’ve moved on to a better integrated solution and Cache-A moved on as well; it was purchased by Promax and their technical support for the old product lines has ceased. But every now and then a client asks us to revise an old project and that requires that we restore assets from the Cache-A, which continued it perform even thought it was EOL.
Well, at long last it appears as though our Cache-A is no longer functional. The unit turns on and tapes load, but the device no longer mounts itself on our network, so there’s no way to reach the user interface to initiate a restore job or to transfer the restored files across the network to our server.
Is there anybody out there with the expertise who can help analyze the problem? Tapes still thread up and cue, so we know that it’s still working on a mechanical level. But at a software level my IT guys are without a clue. I’m hoping someone here might be able to point us in the right direction.
Thanks!
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8 Replies
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Hello Mike –
this is the only person in the world that will be able to help you.
https://tomgoldberg.net/tgcs/television/
Bob Zelin
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so there’s no way to reach the user interface to initiate a restore job or to transfer the restored files across the network to our server.
Did your network change since the last time you used it? I had a similar experience and the Cache-A Bonjour name didn’t work anymore, and I had to enter in the IP address, and that worked.
Use Angry IP Scanner (https://angryip.org) to get sense of what your network looks like, and hopefully you can find the IP address from that as the “Hostname” may mention the name of the Cache-A device.
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If his IT guys have even a clue – they know how to scan for IP addresses on his network appliance (his Cache-A). And notice that here we are on 9/24/2020, and Mr. Raff has not responded if he even bothered to contact Tom Goldberg – designer of the Cache-A.
Bob Zelin
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This may help, all of the Cache docs from ProMax
https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4290574/Support_Docs/Cache-A%20Documentation.zip
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I don’t know if this will help. We had a Pro-Cache that would not boot. I put a bootable copy of Ubuntu on a USB stick and it booted and recognized the tape drive.
I then hooked a NTFS formatted raid to USB of Pro-Cache machine, which Ubuntu recognized.
Then ran terminal command to repeatedly pull tar files off the tape on onto the NTFS drive.
This is what wrote to Tom Goldberg after I did it:
> FYI to update this, the Cache-A started reporting an error in BIOS
of
bad slave drive. It was not reliable in writing or reading
tapes.
>
> I made a live 16.04 Ubuntu Live USB key.
> Put that
in front USB, connected a NTFS formatted 4tb raid to USB in
back.
>
Booted, Ubuntu detected the LTO drive.
> I pretty much copied and pasted
the command from the Cache-A tech note
and am restoring the TAR
tapes.
> Thank you for that! -
Mike,
Cache uses standard TAR, so you can use any LTO3 or LTO4 drive to restore those. Let me know if you’d like me to get you a quote for a drive to use, or we can offer Cache restores as a service if you send them in to us.
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Tim. Cache-A also uses LTFS, as we use here, this is readable on most modern systems, SDNA, Spectra etc as long as the tape generations match.
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Cache-A originally was TAR only. Later they offered LTFS support on same hardware. But you could continue to use TAR.
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