[Neil Sadwelkar]

Precisely.

For the LTO backup service that we offer to videographers and photographers, we often get small 2.5″ external drives, often with only FW800 or even some USB 2.0 only. And some of these drives are even 1 TB in size.
OTOH, there are some who buy portable Thunderbolt drives expecting to get Thunderbolt speeds. One such is a WD drive which is 2.5″ and 4TB in size. Most likely a RAID0 internally with 2×2.5″ drives.

For FW800 we get no more then about 50 MB/sec sustained. And for USB3 only marginally more, with 2.5″ external portables, mind you.
And the Thunderbolt one goes to about 120 MB/sec no more.

Obviously, in these cases, the LTO-6 over SAS speed does not count.

So when we receive a drive, we do the math and make am estimate of time based on the above numbers.

Like, at 50 MB/sec, 2 TB data will take about 11 hrs to write and about as much to verify. Its a day long + overnight 24 hrs job.
The same 2 TB on a USB3 to Thunderbolt 4-bay RAID will get done in less than 7 hours.

There’s a 20-30% difference in time if one is backing up file sequences like ArriRaw or DPX compared to contiguous files from Red/F65/C500. File sequences take longer.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Can you buy/order something or have it delivered, from where you are located? Or do you have to manage with what you have?

Other observations…

[Mark Dee] “A G-Tech eSata hot-swappable enclosure. (GSpeedES) with 4x750GB drives inside
2 x simpler GTech FW800 enclosures (1x750GB) (1x650GB)
8 (ex-MacPro) internal SATA drives
3 x LaCie Rugged drives (FW800/USB1)
A WD MyBook consumer 2TB FW800 enclosue/drive
(Note: None of the above are RAID apart from GSpeedES)
“

The GSpeed can be made to work with your MBP 17″ – see below.
The GTech, LaCie, and WD drives will work fine with your MBP 17″ and you can daisy chain them all together if you wish.

[Mark Dee] “What I need is a strategy for aggregating all FW800/eSATA data onto one enclosure ideally.
My remaining/ core machine is an old MacbookPro with FW800 and Expresscard Slot
“

There are ExpressCard to eSATA converters which work fine with the MBP 17″ and will let you connect to your GSpees eS.

[Mark Dee] “Is there an eSATA/FW800 ‘passthrough’ option to get data over to my laptop?”

No.

[Mark Dee] “Should I remove the 4xgSpeedES drives, drop 4x3TB (12TB) into the GSpeedES box, and copy the removed (smaller) drives, back onto an enlarged (12TB) box somehow?
“

No, please. They work, let them be.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Actually, while Siri speech-to-text does work, it works only in English or even English delivered with a sufficiently western accent. Siri absolutely doesn’t work in, for instance India, or the Far East, or maybe even Africa. OTOH, Google search works just fine with our accents too. On my iPhone I cannot make Siri understand me without repeating things with a faux US accent.
But Google maps and Google search can understand me perfectly.

Avid Script Sync too (AFAIK) works only in English. With dialogues and scripts in other languages, not so. I’ve seen Script Sync magic work in an American movie being shot in India where the asst editor had set it up with the script neatly and one could simply double-click on any line in the script and it would jump to the shot with those lines. Except when one of the characters was speaking some other language or even English with a non-Western accent. There it needed help.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Oh wow. That figures.

Thanks Tim for the detailed explanation.

So that means the OP is out of luck being able to use this RAID for LTO backup with Bru-PE, since the RAID has an Areca (Thunderbolt to) SAS RAID card built-in and cannot be separated from the drives.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I haven’t used the Areca Thunderbolt RAID 8050 myself, (https://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt.htm) but have known other DITs use it as a on-location backup for camera data and it has been reported to work flawlessly even in ‘non-ideal thermal’ environments. And they’ve used the Areca along with StorageDNA so Areca to LTO is also a working combo.

What you could try is to disconnect the mLogic LTO drive, and instead connect any USB3 drive to the MacPro and, of course, the Areca 8050 to the Thunderbolt port of the MacPro.

Next, simply do a Finder copy of about 1.5 TB of data from the Areca to the USB3 drive.
This will sort of simulate an LTO backup. If the Areca successfully streams this large amount of data to the USB3 drive, then the Areca is fine and capable of reading large amounts of data.

Next, you take this same 1.5 TB data now on the USB3 drive, and, with the Areca disconnected, copy it over to LTO tape in the mLogic drive. Using Bru-PE. If this too works, then there’s is some compatibility issue between the Areca and the mLogic.

If, on the other hand, this copy (Areca to USB3) doesn’t succeed, then the Areca might need to be replaced.

BTW how did this data get into the Areca in the first place. If it copied this huge amount of data successfully, then the unit seems to be working fine.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

You do’t need to use LTFS ‘instead of’ Bru-PE since you can write and read LTFS from within Bru-PE too.
And, like Tim commented, Bru-PE uses CPU very lightly so most any tasks while Bru is running, is just fine.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

The best DSLR is actually one without the SLR in it – a mirror less or a ‘bridge’ camera. Some of these cams have gone way ahead of conventional DSLRs as far as video is concerned. And, looking through a viewfinder as opposed to looking at an LCD is better for ‘filming’.

The Sony RX-10 an excellent camera with an f/2.8 lens, but £ 700 or so. As is the Panasonic FZ-1000 but still £ 600. So with your budget, you’re left with the Sony HX400, Panasonic FZ200, or Olympus Pen.

Whatever you go with, Image Stabilization, good AF, and an eye-level viewfinder are features you should not dispense with.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Actually, (and I speak as an owner of both), if your LTFS requirement is occasional, then Bru-PE is the better choice. I use it as a general backup tool. And only when LTFS is needed use PreRoll Post. You can even do LTFS with Bru-PE and I use it that way too when my PRP system is busy.

By the way, Bru-PE has to be bought only for creating a tape backup/archive. Using Bru-PE for restore is free, so you can bundle a demo of Bru-PE (on a CD/pen drive) along with your tapes when handing them over to a client (who also have a Mac and an LTO drive) so that they don’t have to return the tapes back when they need to restore them. They don’t need to buy Bru-PE just to restore a tape.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Thanks Bob.

Now I need to find a large enough place on a movie set with aircon, to try this out.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

If you mean this one,
https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/options/storage/tape/ltogen5/

Then the external SAS version will work with an Atto H680 SAS card inside your MacPro. Make sure the software you plan to use will work with the OS that this MacPro can run.
Older MacPros often can’t be upgraded past Lion or Mountain Lion.

If you’re planning to use the free HP or IBM LTFS software, forget it. Doesn’t work reliably. You need to get either Bru-PE or PreRollPost. Both have trial versions.

Also, consider getting an LTO-6 drive instead of LTO-5.

And BTW, the internal version of this or any other LTO drive won’t work in a MacPro.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India