HI Scott,
I am a new user to LTO3a and have been slowly getting my head around it.
I have found that as your files get smaller, the process slows a lot.
I archived my first Red job, 64.25 Gbs in 28 minutes, but did some general assets archiving of smaller files and it took forever.
I use Cyberduck FTP software to catalogue my tapes, after I complete the archive, I open the tape in Cyberduck, expand all the folders to whatever level I want, calculate their size and then print out/save a pdf of the tapes contents.
Hope this helps a bit.
Good Luck
Big Hat
http://www.bighatpictures.com.au