Tandberg LTO5 + Atto HBA + Mac + LFTS = reasonable?

[Neil Sadwelkar]

So Tim, what did you end up getting?

I’m curious because I was in your boat about a year ago. After mulling over various options, I went out and got a Tandberg LTO-5 and Atto SAS card. Popped it into a MacPro and thought (like you) “I could use the extra $500 so why bother with BRU-PE”.

I tried Tandberg LTFS and try as I might couldn’t get it to work reliably. Some tapes formatted some didn’t, some mounted some didn’t. Maybe it was some Fuse incompatibility maybe something else. Changed systems too. A newer MacPro system worked slightly better.

Eventually went and got BRU-PE. Just bought it didn’t even bother with the demo. I was handling data for a multi-million dollar feature and simply couldn’t take chances with LTFS tapes.

A year later I’m happy to say I’ve managed data for about a dozen features all with BRU. Did a few restores as well. Bought a second drive and second BRU for one of my clients. Then last week another LTO-6 and another BRU for another client.

Just today I reexamined LTFS as some clients are asking for an ‘open’ solution. So I downloaded the OEM LTFS package at Tandberg site and managed to make LTFS mount as a drive. I dragged and dropped a folder on to the tape and then tape began whirring away.

After about 15mins I got the Mac -36 error some file couldn’t be read. It was a Compressor droplet. Which when double-clicked on the source worked fine. So I tried the copy again, this time just the unreadable file. Again same error. I copied the same file to another drive and it copied, but LTFS simply didn’t like it.

So I’ve postponed trying out LTFS for another day. Maybe LTFS works better with IBM or HP tape drives.

Maybe your experiences are better hence I’m curious to see how you’re managing with LTFS. For me, BRU is doing fine. Maybe LTFS works better with IBM or HP tape drives.

People who use StorageDNA seem to have better experiences with LTFS. Or maybe ProRoll Post which is also LTFS based.

I’m now going to start a large portable backup at a client site with BRU-PE running on a 15″ MBP and driving a Tandberg LTO-5 drive off a Thunderbolt – SAS converter which is an Atto SAS inside a Mercury Helios. Done test runs. Seems to work. Will try with a large set of data and see.

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

[Tim Dowse]

Hi Neil,

This is funny timing. I did end up getting the package described at the top of the thread, but it just arrived a few days ago. The ATTO card installed and worked perfectly in my MacPro (from 2010, running 10.6.7).

The drive connected to the computer. I used the Tanderg LTFS to mount my first tape just a couple of days ago. It mounted fine. I copied about 900GB of files, and they all copied fine except there was an error message with the very last folder. Didn’t get to the bottom of what that was, but managed to copy one of the two files (the other was just a re-coding of the original file anyway, so I just left it at that). Unmounted fine. Now I need to get more tapes and see if the error message re-appears.

Sadly, I’m leaving my current position so won’t get to continue testing this. My advice to my successor will be to try a few more times with LTFS. If there are still issues, then BRU is the next choice.

The most important thing I guess is that the drive/card/computer combo works. If we need to spend another $500 on BRU so be it. Will make that decision later.