Martin Greenwood
Forum Replies Created
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The YoYotta database stores the drive or tape name plus path for the video files that have been archived in each project. It includes both the source and destination paths along with extra camera metadata for each clip.
After archiving you can search using file name, part of the original path, codec, resolution to locate where the clips came from and where they are now. This allows you to locate the archive drives or tapes ready for a partial restore.
Alternatively you can restore entire tapes.There is more information here :-
https://yoyotta.com/help/restore.html
https://yoyotta.com/help/restoreLTFS.html
Martin
CTO
YoYotta.com
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For on set workflow get the MacBook Pro. The ports support Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C so give you a lot more flexibility. There are Thunderbolt camera card readers that you may want to use. Also Thunderbolt 3 RAID’s.
Also the MBP has better processor performance.
Martin
CTO
YoYotta.com
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Just to add that we have tested writing sequences of the same 3.4MB files to LTO-5, LTO-6, LTO-7 and LTO-8 here at YoYotta and they all run at full speed.
Also Mauro has performed the same write tests using the Finder to drag and drop the files to tape and this is also slow.We’re going to perform some LTO drive tests.
Meanwhile any ideas are welcome.Martin
CTO
YoYotta.com
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The mechanisms and performance of all LTO-7 and 8 drives are the same, as they are all made by IBM, so your choice is on price or brand.
We would recommend using LTFS, it’s widely used and cross platform. Also we see customers using LTFS tapes as an interchange, rather than handing over a $100 hard drive why not send a $25 tape that can be accessed quickly.
An LTO-7 drive can read three generations of LTO tapes.My company YoYotta develops workflow software for production and post and have used LTFS for over 7 years. Our Conform tool takes an editors timelines and partially restores the clips needed for the edit or grade. It can do this directly from an LTFS tape. Projects can have routinely have hundreds of TB of raw footage so it makes sense to store them on a shelf and restore files on demand.
Martin
CTO
YoYotta.com
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The short answer is that a single unrecoverable error on tape would stop the reading of that file at that point. However other files on tape would be fine. Other methods of writing files to tape like TAR would be the same or worse from a recovery standpoint.
Here is the longer answer…
Like a hard drive, the method used to organise your files on tape does not impact the error rate or recovery, as the drive doesn’t know what you are writing.
There is redundant data written to allow error recovery. Again this is handled by the drive regardless of the method used to write the tape. Also unlike hard drives it’s hard to write over data on a tape, it’s effectively in an amend mode.
With LTFS there is also an index of files and this is written to multiple places to prevent total loss.
If you lose power whilst writing then you can repair a tape, this rolls back to the last index written.
However this is not an issue as you still have the original material at this point.Whilst writing the drive performs a hardware verify of the data. However it makes sense to read back all the files to check that they have all been written. Software like our YoYottaID LTFS does this automatically.
If a tape is dropped or mistreated the tape can be damaged. Whilst this can cause some files to be unrecoverable, the rest of the tape will be ok.
The main thing is to have a minimum of two copies of your data. So make two tapes before you delete the originals.
Then keep them in different locations.Martin
CTO
YoYotta.com
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LTO-7 SAS drives are not that much more expensive and I would guess that within 6 months LTO-7 media is the same price per TB as LTO-6, it’s getting closer all the time. Meanwhile you can use the LTO-7 drive to write LTO-6 media if required. Fitting 5.7TB on an LTO-7 tape makes sense and if you move away from single drives then you can take advantage of the faster write speed.
However the minimum speed matching for LTO-7 is ~ 100 MB/s so writing directly from single hard drives would be slow as the tape stops and starts. This is also the case for LTO-6, if you have lots of small files the transfer rate will drop. But you don’t want to worry too much about this, just leave it archiving.
Martin
CTO
YoYotta.com
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>>> After further reading, LTO-8 and LTO-6 media are not interchangeable (MP & BaFe),
As Sam says there are two types of tape available for LTO-6. On the label you will see either Metal Particle or Barium Ferrite. Ideally all tapes would all be BaFe, but only some manufacturers are able to make tapes with this technology.
An LTO-8 drive could probably read a BaFe LTO-6 tape, but not a MP one.
So for LTO-8 they decided to not read any LTO-6.
This isn’t great, but was the right decision as it would add confusion.So LTO-8 only reads one previous generation, whereas LTO-9 will revert to reading two previous generations.
Meanwhile when buying LTO-6 media always get BaFe as this is an improved technology. (We supply IBM media as they are all BaFe)
Martin Greenwood
CTO
YoYotta.com
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Sam,
LTO-7 will give you ~ 2.3x capacity and 1.8x write speed compared to LTO-6, which is a great increase.
The drive cost is reasonable and it can read/write LTO-7 or LTO-6 and read LTO-5 tapes.LTO-8 has the same write speed of ~ 300MB/s as LTO-7 (unless you get a much more expensive full height library drive and then just 20% faster)
Formatting an LTO-7 tape as M8 gives ~8.5TB and is a clever idea, but the fact that it exists suggests that true LTO-8 media will be expensive and/or delayed ?So to archive 200TB per month today rather than using a single LTO-8 drive I would suggest a dual LTO-7 drive library. Then unattended you can create master and safety archives of large data sets in parallel . Plus the drives will be able to restore any existing LTFS archives. Also your new archive will be readable by many more drives.
You mention 2018/2019 and by then LTO-8 drives and media will be readily available, so of course it will be a different story. Also in 2019 we will probably see LTO-9 !!
Best,
Martin
CTO
YoYotta.com
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LTO drives include speed matching, which adjusts quite well to slower speed sources.
I think for LTO-6 the range of speeds is between 55MB/s and 160MB/s. So as long as your source drives can provide data in that range then the tape speed will adjust so that rewinding is minimised.
LTO-6 drives haven’t dropped that much in price, probably because there is a lot of LTO-6 media so people are hanging onto their drives.
So if buying a new drive I would get LTO-7 for future proofing. If looking second hand then LTO-6 or even LTO-5, as the great thing about LTO is that older media will be available for a long time.There is no need to get a full height drive, it’s only LTO-8 where the full height drive is faster and then not by that much. (360MB/s vs 300MB/s)
If you use LTFS as the format on tape then each file can be read separately. The speed does drop when copying small files, but image sequences and media files all copy at full speed. It’s not worth zipping or taring prior to writing.
Your tape can also be read by anyone else using LTFS on Windows, Mac or Linux which is handy for file interchange.
Best,
Martin Greenwood
CTO
YoYotta.com -
M8 media (As Stephen says these are LTO-7 tapes formatted specially to give 9TB) is a clever idea and the price per TB is the cheapest.
However I’m not sold on LTO-8 right now…
LTO-8 media isn’t available yet.
LTO-8 drives only read back one generation rather than the usual two, so they won’t read LTO-6.
(This is because there were two types of media for LTO-6)
LTO-9 will return to be able to read back two generations.
Also the read/write speed to LTO-8 is the same as LTO-7, unless you have a full height drive.So in summary the drive will cost more, the media will cost less, it won’t be any faster and it won’t read all your older tapes !!
I would stick to the odd numbered LTO generations. However as long as you keep your LTO-6 drives around then depending on the LTO-8 drive price it may make sense for you.
Best,
Martin Greenwood
CTO
YoYotta.com