LTO backup

[Mark Raudonis]

Kevin,

You need to do your homework and research a setup that makes sense for your workflow.

To answer your question: LTO backup can work for what you’re suggesting, but it really depends on your expectations, requirements and BUDGET. How much TIME can you afford to restore a project? That’s the biggest factor affecting cost. Can’t wait? You’re gonna pay. Willing to spend a day restoring a 15 terabyte project? It will be cheaper.

If you’re buying today, I’d focus on LTO5 only. Quantum makes a wide range of systems from small to enterprise class.

Good luck.

Mark

[Bob Zelin]

The Cache-A LTO4 (not LTO5) is $6995. The LTO5 version costs more.
The Cache-A products integrate into a network very easily, so you can backup your projects to tape. Is this a lot of money – sure it is, many people just use multiple SATA drives to accomplish the same thing (with less security). I think that a BRU Producer Edition with an LTO4A or 5A from Quantum may be cheaper, but a lot more painful, in both installation and operation (and speed).

Bob Zelin

[Matthew Stamos]

Mark and Bob both bring up the real key SPEED and this is at least a two part issue. First the speed of the data throughput as Mark describes will ultimately determine the turn around time from both archive to restore. Second Bob’s point about speed of operation and deployment is huge especially in the long run. Cache-A really addresses these issues with LTO by offering an integrated appliance with nothing really more to add but tapes. Cache-A also has the advantage of writing a non proprietary tar format readable by most other LTO systems. LTO tape a as deliverable master?

[Kevin Christopher]

The Cache-A was at the top of my list. The last time I had to deal with backups was when I was the production manager for a DVD company. So my technology knowledge is a little behind. What is the difference between LTO-4 and 5?

[Bob Zelin]

800 Gigs is LTO4
1.5 TB is LTO5

Yes, the Cache-A is teriffic – expensive, but teriffic.

Bob Zelin

[Roy Pearson]

I use an HP LTO-4 drive with BRU PE software on a Mac Pro. The setup is actually very easy if you have the right hardware (Mac and Atto SAS card). The speed has been very fast, no problems there.

I like the BRU software a lot too, it lets you basically just drag in the files you want to archive. My typical “archive” process is to keep one copy of completed projects on hard disk and one on LTO tape. For my relatively small operation this seems pretty safe, at least it’s better than just two duplicate hard drives.

The new LTFS is also something to watch for, it’s open source so it could alleviate some fears about using proprietary software like BRU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape_File_System

[Matthew Stamos]

Kind of surprising that there is not an Archive or Archiving forum on here?
Tolis group products are really good no surprise there and I think Cache-A really takes a different approach to the same problem. The system you describe is a standalone system which is great but Cache-A really is quite different in how it works on a network. No software to install and can be administered by virtually any OS.

[Marcus Lyall]

We’re on LTO4. HP box with scsi.

Our take on it…

1) We’ve looked at Retrospect and Bru Server. Hated both.
Retrospect is pants.
Bru Server was really complicated and had lots of Gotchas.
Unless you like Unix shell scripts.
Haven’t used Bru Producer. Might be good. Was put off by the other Bru experience.

2) We ended up with Archiware Presstore. We really like it.
Pricey for multiple clients but rock solid and worked out of the box.

3) Buy a SATA drive, not scsi. It’s quicker.

4) Worth running the LTO4 drive from a spare machine. Use that G5 that didn’t work out as a server. Sticking a big backup drive on it is good.
So you can back up big projects from that, not your server.

5) Worth talking to someone about a proper backup strategy, rather than just launching into it. We spent weeks trying to get the thing working like we wanted it to. Hire someone to do this for you. It is a colossal time vacuum.

6) Allow a long time to back up your currently-overstuffed RAID. And all those stray Lacie’s you have hanging around. Like a couple of weeks. Quickest SATA drives are about 90mb/s. In practice, you’ll be lucky to stick three tapes a day in.

7) Think about a multi-loader. We didn’t, but now wish we did.
Cos then you can backup a few tapes at a time. This will speed things up.

8) We bought our HP drive on ebay. It works. People do sell ’em cheap.
Worth a look.

Good luck.

[Bob Zelin]

This is what it really comes down to. If you want easy and flexible, you buy the Cache-A. You don’t even have to understand the product. It is a network device, and just mounts on your desktop like a network drive. Any computer can use it instantly – just drag your files onto it, and you have your LTO backup. Restoring your media requires you to go into the GUI, but it’s really easy.

Now for the other “camp” – “there is NO WAY I am going to spend that kind of money” – so these people look on ebay, suffer thru BRU, all the typical insanity of LTO setup and recognition from a system. My advice to these people – USE A SATA DRIVE FOR BACKUP. Save your money, and when you can afford it, buy the Cache-A Prime.

SCSI – it’s 2010, does anyone actually use SCSI anymore ?

Bob Zelin

[Kevin Christopher]

OK don’t Shoot me! I am sold on the Cache-A, but I think an auto-loader would be a great advantage. Although we are a small post facility we do have over 24TB of storage, and are running 3 concurrent projects. We need to be efficient and comprehensive in our backup solution. I also can not dedicate a staff member to archive duties. Several vendors have called me about this already. I just need some real world solution that works.

What we’ve looked at so far:
Cache-A
Promax solution
LTO-5 Auto loader and BRU

Please comment on theses and any other out of the box solutions that truly work.

Kevin