David Fox
12
COW Coins
13
Storage & Archiving Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Shawn,
Just wanted to respond regards this statement from your post..
I was told that the drive you are writing from should be at least as quick as the write speed of the mTape LTO 8 TB3 drive (which I believe is 360Mb), however finding large capacity drives here that can also write that quick is a challenge and would be very costly.
My understanding here (I work for another software vendor Archiware) is that LTO drives are able to speed match the speed at which the tape runs through the drive, with the incoming data rate. So your LTO 8 drive will be spinning at its ‘top speed’ when date is arriving at 360Mb/sec, but as the incoming data-rate slows, the drive will be able to slow down to match. There is however, a lower lower limit, at which point the tape speed can no longer match the data speed. At this point, the drive will stop the tape, fill up its internal buffer with data, and then run the tape again when there’s enough data to write some blocks to the tape. If data continues to arrive at a slow pace, the drive will have to repeatedly stop, fill buffer, start. This is mechanically bad for both drive and tape. Sometimes referred to the ‘shoe shine’ effect.
All this speed matching and shoe-shining can be heard when listening to the drives noises.
The lowest speed at which your LTO drive will be able to accept data will be documented somewhere for the specific drive being used in the mTape enclosure. From my experience, it can vary a little between manufacturers.
Also note that the quoted 360MB/sec speed is for full height LTO drives, I think the drive used in an mTape TB enclosure will be half height, and max speed will be 300MB/sec.
So… your disks don’t need to be super-fast to write to LTO, just no too slow.
This is all based on knowledge of drives. If Canister has it’s own restrictions on data-rates. Then i’m not aware of them.
Best,
David Fox
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Hi Scott,
Archiware P5 will run in this environment and perform backups. Interface is web-based and pretty straightforward once basic concepts are understood.
This webinar recording runs through… https://youtu.be/SPlIru5RzI4
Product is ‘P5 Desktop LTO Edition’, support both backup for DR purposes and also Archive as a structured workflow to get projects off live storage, long term. Different use case to backup.
Hope that’s useful,
David
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Hi Troy,
Archiware P5 Synchronize could do this. It’s a software product, can replicate files/folders from several boxes to a big NAS, either by being installed on the Avid boxes, or having that storage mounted on the NAS. Support snapshots or retention of previous versions of files. All pretty simple to setup and manage via web-admin interface. Also supports backup and archive of same to disk/tape/cloud.
P5 is designed for use in media environments.
Check out https://www.archiware.com/reseller-search to hook up with local partner for demo etc.
David
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Verify read speeds from TB3 raid using Blackmagic disk speed test. Write to tape won’t go any faster. Also the block size set in the P5 storage pool might be increased for more throughput.
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How about LTO tape to archive your completed projects. 6TB of capacity for around 50 USD, once you’ve purchase the drive. They are simpler than hard disks and safe for 20-30 years, way beyond the lifespan you might expect from a spinning disk.
Full disclosure, I represent Archiware.com who provide a software product ‘P5’ that leverages LTO tape and makes a great media archive solution. Paired up with an LTO drive, P5 provides an archive workflow where your completed projects are written to tape (2 tapes for redundancy) and indexed into a database, including previews/proxies and metadata. So you can search and find media files and projects easily years after you archived them. See https://p5.archiware.com/solutions/video-archive
Adding TB’s to your primary edit storage isn’t really necessary as completed work doesn’t need to stay there. Hard drives on shelves is a problem waiting to happen. A reel of tape in its plastic cartridge will last a long time, if kept away from heat and damp.
So tape + proper archive workflow is my suggestion. You can also use your LTO drive + tapes to take a proper backup. Tapes also easy to move to 2nd location for safety.
P5 can also write to cloud storage. If you can upload your media files quick enough via your internet connection, and happy to pay monthly storage costs. Makes the hardware aspect of the storage issue someone else’s problem in exchange for some monthly cash.
Hope this helps a little Eddy!
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For those interested in Archiware P5’s new LTFS support, we presented a webinar yesterday where I ran through how it works via a demo…
Cheers,
David
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Indeed! Released today. Archiware implemented their own LTFS driver. Runs on Linux, Win, Mac and FreeBSD (for the FreeNAS folk).
Details here: https://p5.archiware.com/new-features
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I’ve read that the SAS <-> Thunderbolt bridge requires a driver update to work with the new M1 architecture Macs. I don’t know which bridge you’re using, you don’t say, but check with the vendor to see if it’s compatible with M1 Macs and there should be a firmware update available now or soon.
Dave
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My workflow would be to remove all the render files from the FCP project and keep the entire project as the archive, so you can continue editing in the future should you need to. My ‘render files’ I mean anything that has been generated by FCP/FCPX that can be generated again in future, and therefore doesn’t need to take up disk space for the time being.
30GB isn’t particularly large in these times of 1080 resolution and upwards. The total size of the FCP project won’t benefit from further compression.
I’m assuming FCP has the same project concept as FCPX here, i’ve only used the latter.
David
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Full disclosure – I represent the product mentioned below in the UK.
Check out Archiware P5 – http://p5.archiware.com
This performs Archive/Backup/Replication and is popular in the M&E space, been around for 19 years at least. It supports all the tape hardware that the TOLIS products did, has browser-based config/admin and runs on all the latest OS’s, including 10.15 and 10.16. Even been successfully tested on ARM Mac. Also runs on Linux/Windows and various NAS devices.
Quick presentation and demo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqm5KROqjWo
As it stands, a Tolis customer would need to recover data back to disk, from LTO, and then save again using P5.
The product is being discounted by 50% for existing Bru customers. Archive license needs to be purchased and invoice provided.
Happy to answer questions here if anyone interested.
David Fox
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