[Frank Gothmann]

[Herb Sevush] “This is excellent news. Now I’m not beholding to Apple and I can go ahead.

Actually, if you are using BRU not with its proprietary format but just as a front end for LTFS you may not need Linux at all (if you get a tape drive that supports LTFS under Win, ie. IBM etc., HP has said to will come out with a solution 1st quarter 2012) but simply access the files from within windows.
Linux is only needed if you went BRU native without LTFS. As I have said, I haven’t used BRU and LTFS together but it would appear as if BRU is just keeping track of what you have stored on which tape in such scenario and moves the files there fore you in a linear. managed fashion.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Herb Sevush] “Let me see if I get this right. I get an LTO-5 BRU OSX version now, store everything as LTFS. If /when I migrate to windows I will have to rebuild my raid anyhow, format it as NTFS. When I want to use the LTO with that box, boot as Linux and both the raid and it’s files will be available as well as the LTO drive for backup. Is that correct?”

Correct!
Raid controllers, probably more than anything, are built for sever infrastructure so they all have Linux support and it’s usually out of the box unless you have some brand new cutting edge controller that hasn’t made it into the kernel yet (in which case you just install the driver). I am not aware of any Raid controller out there that doesn’t have Linux support.
There is also HFS support in Linux but it has issues so you are better of reformatting your raid as NTFS.
I mentioned the new ATTO controller in a post below because it has 4 ports and according to my VAR it works fine with tape and Raid.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Herb Sevush] “I don’t see how the linux would work for me. My raid will be attached to whatever computer is hosting the LTO drive. If I booted to Linux I would loose access to the raid, so that doesn’t work. The BPU / LTFS seems a better avenue, my storage needs are large dead simple, I’m just looking for something that can migrate with me if I change platforms.”

Why would you loose access to your raid? Support for raid cards under Linux is pretty much top of the line. Virtually all raid controllers work out of the box without any drivers at all (Areca etc.) in a modern kernel. You may want your raid in NTFS format though if you want to read and write to it.
I am in a similar situation as you are regarding your question, gradually moving to windows with my shop one machine at a time as things get replaced btw.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Herb Sevush] “Thanks for the info, even though it’s definitely not what i was hoping to hear. In researching LTFS on the web I saw a number of posts, dated from January 2011, that complained about LTFS accuracy and performance, especially dealing with large numbers of files. is this still the case, or do you find it stable and suitable for important backups?
“

I haven’t experienced any issues. LTFS is something a lot of the big players seem committed to so if anything my best guess is it will get more implemented and more widespread. The danger of LTFS is that people may be tempted to use it the way they’d use a regular hard drive and that can lead to performance issues because it’s linear after all. If you copy 10 folders to the tape, you can then, a month later, open the 1st folder and drop more files into it. So while all the data of folder 1 is written at the start of the tape, the new stuff is written at then end so when you restore the tape has to go from the start, then move right to the end, and then rewind back to the start again although it seems to be bundled together in 1 folder.
So if you you do it in such incremental ways your tape gets totally fragemented and it has to move back and forth constantly to pick up the data rathern than just flow from start to end.
That’s not how I have written to LTFS though and one shouldn’t. I usually wait till I have enough stuff to fill a tape, then I simply drop everything on it so the tape is written in a linear fashion and backups are equally linear.
If you want something more managed, I’d look into BRU with LTFS or think about the BRU/MAC BRU/Linux variant. Linux can cerate a bootable USB stick with one click and operation is dead simple.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Andrew Richards] “You might not be able to use the same SAS card for BRU on the Mac (ATTO) and IBM LTFS on Windows (LSI is the only vendor qualified by IBM for LTFS on Win7).”

I was told by my VAR that ATTOs new PCIe3 controller ESAS-H6F0 will work fine everywhere, including a conbination of RAID boxes and LTO drive (that was a problem with the previous ATTO I am currently using with the drive which is why they told me).

[Frank Gothmann]

Hi Herb,

no, BRU archives cannot be read under windows. You have a couple of options. Use BRU and on the Win machine you could install a small Linux partition (or use a USB stick). There is a cheap BRU edition that runs under Linux that can do the same as BRU on the Mac. You can access your tapes with it without problems. Sounds complicated but it really isn’t. Just a reboot.
You can also use a backup solution on the Win side but that won’t be compatible under OSX. There are loads, some quite cheap.

If you want true cross platform compatibility you could use LTFS (You need a drive from IBM as it has LTFS for all platforms. HP has anounced but not yet released LTFS support for windows, it currently works only with Linux and Mac). Via LTFS you can simply drag and drop to your drive. BRU also supports LTFS so you should be able to use BRU and LTFS on the Mac side while just accessing the tapes via LTFS on Win (I personally haven’t used BRU with LTFS, just BRU or LTFS so you might need to ask Tolisgroup about specifics).
If I were you I’d look into basic LTFS. If you find you need some software to manage things for you, you can then download the trial apps and see what works best for you once the physical tape drive is with you.

[Frank Gothmann]

I am using a standard HP UL3200 SE LTO5 drive with an ATTO controller. Works just fine, both with BRU as well as the included HP utilities for LTFS.
Zero issues.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Ltfs represents a step forward, but since we are lto4, we don’t have that capability so I can’t speak to that.”

LTFS is still fairly young and there are a few things one should be aware of but it opens up new backup possibilities and an interesting roadmap with specs for LTO6 and 7 already in the can plus cartridges are quite cheap.
While it is of course not recomended nor something that should be done in production, it is possible to play HD Prores HQ streams in QT player from an LTO5 tape in realtime without dropped frames. So in terms of speed that’s pretty amazing compared to tape based backups a few years ago.

[Frank Gothmann]

[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.).

[Frank Gothmann]

[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.