Offloading Speeds on Mac Pro with mTape to LTO-6..

[David Roth weiss]

Did you download the latest drivers from mTape? I believe there may be a special one compatible with BRU PE.

Have you called tech support at mTape or Tolis (BRU)?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Suny Behar]

I did download the latest drivers from mTape. I could not find a special one, there is only one driver on mTape’s website…

I contacted tech support at BRU and so far was only told to make sure I have the latest drivers…

that’s getting pretty old 😉

[David Roth weiss]

I understand your frustration. You should definitely call mLogic.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Martin Greenwood]

As you have tested with two different archive apps it could be a faulty drive, to help troubleshoot you could download our app YoYottaID LTFS.
When run it will check that you have all the correct frameworks for LTFS and driver for mTape.
If anything is needed it will download and update to the latest versions.

https://yoyotta.com/help/demo.html

If you have the same problems, then please contact me and I can take a look at the Mac system log to troubleshoot.

Martin Greenwood
martin@yoyotta.com
CTO YoYotta

[Tim Jones]

Hi Suny,

Unfortunately, all that we can offer is to insure that you’ve downloaded their latest firmware and drivers. Unlike ATTO and HighPoint, the Areca team has been very strict with their work in resolving the tape I/O issues that we identified in their driver / firmware stack over 5 years ago. It wasn’t until they discovered that their drivers didn’t work for the mTape unit that they even tried to make any effort in resolving the issue.

I have contacted the mLogic team. In the mean time, our engineers are building a version of BRU PE that may provide a more detailed examination as to why the data flow is so slow. Check your support ticket for a download link later today.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

One additional bit of information that our lab team just shared with me – the Areca RAID cards are known to have heat problems when backups are running. Unlike normal disk I/O when you are writing data in bursts, the act of reading data from the device for backup is a continuous stream of data with very few breaks (especially with LTO-6). He have had our Mac Pro and Windows systems physically shut down because the Areca card overheats. When we shared this issue with Areca US support, their guidance was to open the case and aim a desk fan at the system.

While it is unfortunate and something that I don’t like to have to do, we now recommend to our customers to stay away from Areca RAID adapters for non-server installation as they are simply not stable in extreme I/O situations where you are not running them in a controlled server infrastructure environment (forced cooling, humidity control, etc.).

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Suny Behar]

Thanks for the info Tim!

In this case, the ARECA Raid controller card is in the free standing 8 Bay RAID Drive chassis (not inside the cylinder Mac Pro which does not accept PCIe cards obviously). Does this advice still apply? The RAID drive chassis is connected to the Mac Pro via Thunderbolt. Are they recommending that I remove the case from the RAID Drive chassis to expose the drives and card? Thanks for clarifying.

[Suny Behar]

Hey Martin,

Thanks for the offer, that’s very kind of you.

I will download the demo and see what I get.

Cheers!

Suny

[Tim Jones]

Suny,

It could very well be their enclosure. Since you’re running with 8 drives, there’s a lot of heat generated – especially during a backup / archival operation where you’re not simply copying files. In our tests, we were able to burst write or burst read from an Areca-controlled array, but when we started continuous and contiguous reads from the controlled array, the HBA would overheat and the Mac wold either hang or fully gray-screen.

As contrived as this may sound, if you have a small desk fan, you might try placing it in front of the case (open the front door if there is one) and blow air across the drives to reduce the heat that they output. This may be enough to reduce the heat profile within the case and keep the Areca controller under critical temps. It’s what Areca’s tech rep suggested to us when we reported the issue and it did work when the fan was on medium or high speeds.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I haven’t used the Areca Thunderbolt RAID 8050 myself, (https://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt.htm) but have known other DITs use it as a on-location backup for camera data and it has been reported to work flawlessly even in ‘non-ideal thermal’ environments. And they’ve used the Areca along with StorageDNA so Areca to LTO is also a working combo.

What you could try is to disconnect the mLogic LTO drive, and instead connect any USB3 drive to the MacPro and, of course, the Areca 8050 to the Thunderbolt port of the MacPro.

Next, simply do a Finder copy of about 1.5 TB of data from the Areca to the USB3 drive.
This will sort of simulate an LTO backup. If the Areca successfully streams this large amount of data to the USB3 drive, then the Areca is fine and capable of reading large amounts of data.

Next, you take this same 1.5 TB data now on the USB3 drive, and, with the Areca disconnected, copy it over to LTO tape in the mLogic drive. Using Bru-PE. If this too works, then there’s is some compatibility issue between the Areca and the mLogic.

If, on the other hand, this copy (Areca to USB3) doesn’t succeed, then the Areca might need to be replaced.

BTW how did this data get into the Areca in the first place. If it copied this huge amount of data successfully, then the unit seems to be working fine.

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