OT: Quantum SDLT as a backup solution…Anyone?

[Jerry Hofmann]

I haven’t used one in a while, but the last time I did, I came to the conclusion that it was just too slow to bother with. DVD burning would be about as slow… I think the future points at Blu Ray…

Jerry

[Dan Brockett]

Hi:

We have a new Quantum 650 DLT drive, the one that can read timecode. I agree with Jerry, it’s reliable as heck but S L O W. Our new archival format for P2 is a 1200 DVCProHD deck. Kind of ridiculous that we are shooting P2 so that we can dub to tape but that’s what works for our workflow unfortunately.

A lot of the time now for interviews, we aren’t even shooting P2 anymore, we shoot tape by plugging the HVX into the 1200. Works great.

Dan

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[Jeremy Garchow]

Thanks for your replies, guys.

Dan, what do you mean by slow and what’s the maximum tape size? Let’s say I had 200 Gigs to backup, how long do you think it’d take? This is strictly for archiving when a project is done so speed isn’t a huge issue. I am now constantly juggling disk space on and off my raid until I can get these MXF files secure. As of now I have about 350Gigs to backup. I can’t imagine burning that many DVDs, even dual layer. I bet BluRay burning will be extremely slow right off the bat too. I’ve had too many hard drives fail on me to stick one on the shelf and sit, but maybe I’ll have to bite the bullet if this SDLT thing will take days to transfer a couple hundred gigs.
Also, does the Quantum work with your Mac and are you connected through Ethernet?

Jeremy

[Dan Brockett]

Hi:

Slow to me means that each card (8GB) takes a long time, like an hour or two. Multiply that times hundreds of cards we shot for a sitcom pilot and you have a bad bottleneck.

The max tape size is 300GB

We have this one https://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeDrives/DLT/SDLT600A/Index.aspx and it cost a lot, about $7,000.00 or $8,000.00 if I recall correctly?

Quantum works fine with the Macs as well as PCs

Yes, that is the only interface this thing has, ethernet.

Wanna buy one? Let me know, we may sell ours. As I said, we are having much better results archiving to DVCProHD tape. Restoring files from DLT takes forever and it is also very difficult to find files when you have 300GB worth of them on a single DLT tape.

Best,

Dan

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[Mark Raudonis]

Jeremy,

I too had one for a trial run. My conclusion: Too slooooooooooow!

Have you investigated Blu-Ray DVD’s? Approx 50 gig per disc. Can’t be any slower than this.

Mark

[Jeremy Garchow]

Bummer, sounds like it’s not going to be good.

I have investigated BluRay a little and I haven’t found one that works on a mac. And the 50GB dual layer thing is a pipe dream at this point, no? Also, a v1 burner is going to be ultra slow, couldn’t be much faster/slower than the DLT and I’d have to burn 7 dual layer disc to fill up 350 Gigs. Looks like I can’t avoid hard drives and I’ll probably be silly and back it up twice.

Taping to a 1200A is cool for HVX, but I’m looking to back up project files/data/animations/renders, that sort of thing, more than just footage.

Thanks all for your help everyone, you have saved me some research time on the Quantum.

Jeremy

[Chris Borjis]

I know you don’t like hard drives but lots of folks are using them for archiving.

We use the 500GB Western Digital External “My Book Drives”
you can get them now for 250 at newegg(dot)com

[Steve]

Dan- hello. Noticed you posted a post re; Quantum SDLT drive. Just received one.We are attemping to set it up with the MACPro. I can get into the Drives setup interface through the browser by https://10.10.10.10 I can NOT use the built in FTP client and or a external FTP client to communicate to the drive. It just does not make the connection. It errors with username and or password wrong. Even though I have set-up a username and password in the drives FTP clients interface.

Any thoughts?

Regards
Steve

[Dan Brockett]

Hi:

We have a staff person who deals withthe backups, I will have to see if he can tell you about this tomorrow. I did help him set it up and I recall it was pretty simple, we just drag and srop the files we want to backup to tape.

One thing you will want to check, is the drive on and is there a tape in it while you are trying to set this up?

Best,

Dan

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[Steve]

Dan- thanks for your reply… Yes the tape is in the drive is on. Th can get to the drives interface but it is NOT allowing FTP’ing are you on a MAC or PC?

Regards
Steve