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Looking for a good data tape backup for FCP/Mac Pro
Just looking for a good tape-based data backup for my FCP jobs. The preferred format seems to be LTO4. I’m concerned that having hard drives sitting on the shelf unused for months or years is going to lead to an unhappy ending.
A lot of the used LTO4 units on eBay have SCSI connectors and appear to be outdated. What seems to be the standard to use in a 2009 Mac Pro that can utilise the I/O capabilities of the Mac? I can’t seem to find a difinitive answer elsewhere.
Cheers,
Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
http://www.php.com.au -
13 Replies
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Checkout HD Log™ Gold Edition
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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[Peter Corbett] “What seems to be the standard to use in a 2009 Mac Pro that can utilise the I/O capabilities of the Mac?”
None really… SCSI is standard fare, whether plain SCSI-3, SAS, or Fibre.
Cache-A makes an GigE based LTO-4 FTP appliance with a built in HD that is good for small shops. LTO-4 drives are fast… we have a few and get 60MB/sec via 2Gb fibre. With this speed there’s little chance of a USB or even firewire version.
Do me a favor… I’m trying to get Archive & Back-up added as a forum. This would seem to be a deserving topic. If you, or others, feel the same… chime in…
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/1/857397
Thanks
John Heagy -
check out Overland https://www.overlandstorage.com
I have one of their scsi tape drives and its worked flawlessly for the past two years. I know they also make non-scsi connected drives (SAS, Fibre – maybe others as well).
One thing you might want to consider is using an older mac with a scsi card to become your backup server. I have done just this and it works really well. I installed the backup software on the old mac, connected the tapedrive via scsi, and connected my two other “working” macs via gigabit ethernet.
This way i can leave the old mac to run backups software and schedules 24hrs a day, it leaves my other machines free to work without multitasking the backups, and i dont have to worry that an OS update might upset the backup software, because once i got it working stably i have not done any updates and its worked perfectly for the last two years.
It also means that if i have a system drive fail, i don’t have to re-install the system, then the backup software before i can actually run the restore.
adam
Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UKhttp://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk
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You might want to consider LTO3 if budget is an issue – second hand drives are much cheaper than LTO4. We have one connected via an ATTO SAS card and it works perfectly.
-Stuart
7 MacPros – Kona 3, Kona LH & Kona LHi
1 G5 – Kona LH
xbox360, Wii, PSP, PS3
https://www.speak.co.uk -
Am I missing something? Old Macs and SCSI??? Seriously? OMG, There is a need for tape drive hardware. Somebody really needs to make a simple, affordable external box with eSata or FW800 that does this.
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+1 for Cache-A.
We have one and it connect via ethernet. It is LTo$, but there are LTO5 versions now available which offer more capacity and more speed.
Jeremy
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The Cache-A looks nice, but is there anything cheaper than $6K? I’m a small shoot/editor that just wants to archive small amounts.
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[Ernie Santella] “I’m a small shoot/editor that just wants to archive small amounts.”
How small is small?
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SCSI is clearly not the interface of choice for most consumers these days, but is still very relevant to high-priority pro applications, such as backups. One SCSI buss accepts more devices than any other protocol, has bandwidths that completely eclipse eSATA or 1394 and SCSI devices, being aimed at the pro market, are generally of higher standard. eSATA and FW800 can have uses in the pro market, but are designed as consumer standards. Anyone plumping down for a tape backup drive is serious about his backups, so offering him a device with a consumer interface makes little sense.
There are very simple, very affordable backup solutions. When you go for a tape system, you decide you want a professional, reliable system. They’re just different solutions for different people.
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
About 300-400GB a month of shooting/editing.
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