Kevin Francis
Forum Replies Created
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Imagine Products PreRollPost now has an option to archive LTFS in the format specified by Discovery as well.
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DLT is old technology! Your going to need a SCSI connection most likely. We used to use a SCSI to firewire adapter most recently when we had to restore from DLT. But the most important question will be the software originally used to archive the data. You’ll need that, too.
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Can someone at the network point you to a resource that details how to do this? Is this an industry standard practice?
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Hi Bob,
Not sure if you are Mac or PC. We’ve been using BRU PE for a couple of years and for the most part it works. Helps to have knowledge of Terminal commands because you will definitely need it from time to time to restore a tape or for other functions. Their support is good but not fast- if you have an urgent issue you’re pretty much out of luck. The interface has quirks and bugs that usually get addressed eventually but sometimes get broken again on a new update. When your archive library starts to get big, it takes a long time for the app to boot up as it reads all the archive data. If I had it to do all over again, I would have invested a little extra in one of the Cache-A appliances and saved myself a lot of time and headaches.
Using LTFS from the Finder in Mac isn’t ideal, but it is an up and coming standard which nearly every vendor supports at this point, even BRU. But since you probably read the article Tim mentioned above, you know all about the idiosyncrasies of LTFS.
Hope that helps.
Kevin
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Matt-
I’ve been having the same issues with both P2 and AVCHD timecode and have been frustrated that more people haven’t reported this. I guess most people don’t even care about timecode any more! I’ll try some of your suggestions, but again, can’t believe a mature product is having problems like this and not many seem to care or notice.
Kevin
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Or for $23 you can buy VisualHub and do Flash and a whole lot more….
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Mike- it’s not true that they have zero Mac experience. I’d be glad to give you any help I can, but we should do it offline. I’ll contact you via email.
Thanks,
Kevin
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Matthew- that is correct. You can do partial restores of MXF files based on timecode. We liked the drive because it plugs into gigabit ethernet and you can access it from any computer on the network with a web browser, no backup software required. And if you need to send a tape to another facility, if they’ve got the LTO-3A drive they can read your tapes without any proprietary software. The tapes hold 400GB and cost $40. And in my experience you can move data at about 1.3 – 1.5GB/min.
Kevin
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You don’t have to use proprietary software to transfer files to the Quantum LTO-3A tape drive (or the SDLT model, for that matter). LTO is much faster and the tapes have a larger capacity. We’re just using the Transmit FTP application on our Mac network, Quantum also has a built-in web interface you can use if you’d rather. You can read the files on the tapes on any computer, PC or Mac, that is connected to the drive on the network.
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Matthew-
We purchased the LTO-3A Superloader a month or so ago and we’ve been working through issues with the Quantum tech support guys to get it working consistently since we’ve had it. I will say they are being very helpful and I’m confident we’ll get the issues resolved. There really wasn’t a better backup option in my opinion. We’re an all Mac network and we’re primarily using the FTP app Transmit to move stuff to the tape drive and back– seems much less clunky than the web interface they’ve developed. It is very fast if you are on a GigE network transferring large files (big Quicktime movies, 10GB or so) but slower when transferring P2 data where there are many smaller files and folders. But the shelf life, capacity, and cost of the LTO tapes is unbeatable.
Kevin