-
Promise Pegasus R4 8tb RAID config?
-
[Herb Sevush] “I look at back-up differently. For me there are 2 different things to back up. 1 – Original camera sources recorded tapeless, 2 – Project media.”
I was dreadfully unclear in my original post. I was using the word “project” in the sense of all files associated with a particular job, not in the sense of an NLE application’s file (like a .FCP or .prproj) that is distinct from its associated media.
I keep tapeless camera originals filed with other assets in its associated project folder.
I used to let FCP manage its render files (keeping them outside of my project folder structure and abandoning render files when the project concluded). With Premiere Pro’s ability to manage render files on a project basis instead of a system basis, I can now keep render files in my project folders. I manually manage my C4D and AE renders, and they all stay with their associated project, too.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “I used to let FCP manage its render files (keeping them outside of my project folder structure and abandoning render files when the project concluded). With Premiere Pro’s ability to manage render files on a project basis instead of a system basis, I can now keep render files in my project folders.”
Considering the nature of the work you do I would imagine some of your renders would be well worth worth saving.
AS for me, with FCP I would treat certain important renders as clips, copying them from the renders folder into the projects scratch media folder and renaming them before using. For the most part I’m happy to blow them away and let the program re-render as needed. I’m just looking for a way to recreate the security of a tape workflow in a tapeless world.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
This has been an interesting thread. I would appreciate more details regarding hardware and software. It’s all about data management, and the very specific approaches used are quite important. Clearly Walter and Herb are way ahead of me on this score. Help me catch up please!
Bob C
-
[Bob Cole] “Clearly Walter and Herb are way ahead of me on this score. Help me catch up please!”
Actually Walter is way ahead, he actually has an LTO tape drive and uses it regularly. I’ve been researching this for about 6 months and I’m ready to take the plunge, just waiting to see what shakes out at NAB before I make any computer purchases.
LTO drives are a tape backup medium. The latest generation, LTO-5, can handle 1.5 Tb per tape (there is a compression scheme that can squeeze data 2:1 but apparently it doesn’t squeeze much out of video files so I probably won’t use it.) Most of the drives need a PCI SAS or fibre channel host card, although Walter has his hooked up over ethernet. The transfer speed is around 1 TB an hour using a SAS card.
These drives are mostly intended for large networked facilities and can come with cassette auto-loading so you can back up huge amounts of data unattended. That’s not what I’m looking for, I just want to be able to back-up my media files to tape. Simple single external drives seem to cost around 2500 – 3500, the tapes around 90 each. You also need software to run the drives, BRU seems to be the most recommended on the MAC side, I’m not sure about what is best on Windows. There’s also a company called Cache-A that makes what they call appliances where the LTO drive is teamed with it’s own hard drive for buffering and has multiple ways to connect to a system – they have their own software and go for around 6K – 7k. The Cache-A system is very highly recommended.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “Considering the nature of the work you do I would imagine some of your renders would be well worth worth saving.”
I generally don’t care about the NLE renders; those tend to be less involved and pretty fast to re-render, and I’m usually not finishing in the NLE anyway. I do care a great deal about preserving AE/C4D mograph and animation renders, though, because the cost for disk space is negligible, but the cost for re-render time is high.
[Herb Sevush] “AS for me, with FCP I would treat certain important renders as clips, copying them from the renders folder into the projects scratch media folder and renaming them before using.”
That’s a pretty clever idea. It’s kind of funny how we can turn FCP7’s weaknesses in media management into a strength.
[Herb Sevush] ” I’m just looking for a way to recreate the security of a tape workflow in a tapeless world.”
I think dumping all your camera originals onto LTO5 as you’ve suggested sounds like the perfect solution for your workflow.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Bob Cole] “Help me catch up please!”
Herb gave a great overview of your LTO5 options.
If you’ve got more questions, start up a thread on the Archiving and Backup forum [link]. I’ll follow you there, and you’ll likely get some other very good opinions as well.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Herb Sevush] “You also need software to run the drives, BRU seems to be the most recommended on the MAC side, I’m not sure about what is best on Windows. There’s also a company called Cache-A that makes what they call appliances where the LTO drive is teamed with it’s own hard drive for buffering and has multiple ways to connect to a system – they have their own software and go for around 6K – 7k. The Cache-A system is very highly recommended.”
Just as a little additional info in case someone considers LTO5 for their backup needs. You don’t absolutely need additional software for your backups (which in turn is also required to read back, sometimes an issue in cross platform environments etc.). You can also use LTFS (Linear tape file system, driver & utility comes free with the drive) and the tape will mount on the desktop just like any other media. Writing to it is a drag and drop operation, as is reading back to your machine.
-
[Frank Gothmann] ” You can also use LTFS (Linear tape file system, driver & utility comes free with the drive)”
Does this utility come with the Cache-A system, or with all LTO drives?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “Does this utility come with the Cache-A system, or with all LTO drives?”
Comes with all LTO 5 drives, it doesn’t work with previous generations. Different vendors have different utilities, but the actual file system as such is not vendor specific. Also BRU PE has the ability to read and write LTFS. The win equivalent to BRU would be XenData Workstation, also does LTFS.
It’s convenient, and free. Drawback of course is that there is no management in restoring, ie. BRU etc. can restore to the exact location where the original file were. If you copied it via the finder to LTFS you’d have to remember where it was in order to restore it to the same place (which isn’t always important but can be for NLEs, render stuff, fonts etc.). -
[Herb Sevush] “The Cache-A system is very highly recommended.”
Cache-A is da bomb as they say, and it’s the only LTO system that’s fully integrated with CatDV, which is an incredible DAM (Digital Asset Manager), and fully integrated with FCP legacy.
Check this webinar out, CatDV will amaze you:
https://www.promax.com/s-108-catdv-digital-asset-management-webinar.aspxDavid Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.com
http://www.ProMax.com
Sales | Integration | Support
David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up