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Some advice about the Cache-A
Hi There
I’m not exactly sure if this is the right forum but I would like some advice on the Cache-A. Has anyone used it before? I work for a small TV company and we will be shooting and editing almost simultaneously and our producer and directors will want access to the rushes while the edit is happening.
The Cache-A stores things on tapes on a network, I think. If someone could explain to me how it works a little more in detail I would be forever grateful. I’m not sure if it’s rushes that are stored on tape or meta-data, but we need to know whether its a good device to back stuff up on as well as have it available on a network so we can look at rushes simultaneously. It costs 5K so we want to know whether it’s a worthwhile investment.
Thanks for any advice given.
Jack
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2 Replies
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Jack, the Cache-A is an external high speed, high powered data to tape back-up(, restore) unit. It features a xeon booster cpu which turns on and off with the tape unit and it`s job, lessening the slowdowns to your system that would otherwise be severe when it it turns on. Also, turning the xeon on and off with the tape unit saves lots of electricity and heat. Software bundled with the unit opens up some features but you`ll still need to reach right now for your own pencil notebook on metadata tricks which you can start filling with hints gleaned from Bob`s “GlueTools.Com” and some older entries of the ARRI forum, amongst other places. The new LTO-5 tape cartridges have a small flash memory inside to record the directory of the data from the tape, and the previous tapes (LTO-4, etc) don`t have this separate memory. (Network, or stand-alone). Fred Jodry
Some advice about the Cache-A by, jack wormell on Jan 3, 2012 at 9:09:43 am
Hi There- I’m not exactly sure if this is the right forum but I would like some advice on the Cache-A. Has anyone used it before? I work for a small TV company and we will be shooting and editing almost simultaneously and our producer and directors will want access to the rushes while the edit is happening.
The Cache-A stores things on tapes on a network, I think. If someone could explain to me how it works a little more in detail I would be forever grateful. I’m not sure if it’s rushes that are stored on tape or meta-data, but we need to know whether its a good device to back stuff up on as well as have it available on a network so we can look at rushes simultaneously. It costs 5K so we want to know whether it’s a worthwhile investment.
Thanks for any advice given. Jack -
Hi Jack,
Normally I keep and eye on the Archiving and Backup forum but am happy to jump over here.
We appreciate Fred’s interest in helping, but as we are the manufacturer of your subject query, I’d like to provide some further explanation.
As you noted, with our gear, you store your content to tape over a network – our systems offer a share (just like on any NAS) and whatever you copy to this share can be either automatically or manually moved to LTO tape at high speed. We don’t care whether that content is rushes or camera raw – we store everything on tape by filename and allow you to tag additional metadata to any file, folder or tape. There is plenty more information about and lists of video outfits currently using our solutions on our web site at cache-a.com. You may want to contact one of our dealers listed on the site – they can explain more and many can provide demos.
Just to correct a few points, our systems are “appliances” that connect simply and require no software on your workstations. They are in fact self-contained Linux servers that today are running on core2duo processors (not xeons) but all of this is transparent to the user. Also, all versions of LTO tapes contain a small memory chip that tracks usage and manufacturer’s data but user data all goes onto tape.
I hope this has helped explain our approach but feel free to email me or post further if you have more questions.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com
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