Tim Jones
Forum Replies Created
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BRU PE handles archives based on two levels of naming – a Tape Set name, and an Archive Name (or label). A tape set consists of one or more tapes containing 1 or ore normally related archives. For example, you are working on a new documentary – “12 Days On The Nile” and you wish to store your dailies in a Tape Set collection. As you create a new archive and append it to the tapes in the tape set, you name each day’s Archive with a label (the date info is already included). As the shoot progresses and your dailies archives grow to cover 14 tapes, all that you need to do is to keep them ordered by their volume order. When you need to restore something and that something is in an archive named “Closing on Memphis – primary camera”, you select the file(s) / Folder(s) that you wish to restore and BRU PE will tell you that you need tapes 5 and 6 from the tape set “12 Days On The Nile”.
In our research of user feedback over our 31 years of operation, we have determined that humans can far more easily deal with such a design versus dealing with various arcane tape numbering methodologies.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
You’re still dealing with whatever your current technology is and needing to plan for your longevity requirements, so keep that in mind whatever path you take.
For immediate “backup”, the FCP X mechanism is perfect. However, how will you deal with that backup in 10 years? It may be that creating an archive of your original clips and then creating an XML export of your project would give you longer access – if you need the project tomorrow, FCP X will happily import that XML and whatever software is being used in 10 years has a better chance of reading and manipulating that XML export that the native FCP X format.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
That’s exactly why we don’t support the SL-3. What you’re witnessing is a hardware error, not software problems. A MOVE ELEMENT call is specifically defined low-level SCSI command that is the same no matter who’s software you’re using. If the library’s acting up on something that simple, there’s nothing that any software vendor can do to alleviate it. This is a perfect example of why we don’t support that unit and recommend you to stay way. It’s not that BRU products won’t work with it, but rather that they break down too often for a reliable backup environment.
If your SL-3 is already acting up, you’ll see the same issues with any other software package; and it won’t get better over time.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Hi Swami,
Remember that the compression that is discussed in CODEC land is very, very different from the compression used by backup tools. When you modify an audio stem from 96Khz, 24bit BWAV to something like a 44.1K, 16bit WAV file, you’re actually losing data. When your backup solution compresses a file, you will get bak 100% of what you put in.
In the case of most audio and video CODEC formats at the edit level, the lossy compression has already been applied before you back it up or archive it. This means that the backup tool (BRU, ZIP, etc.) will not gain any further compression since the DATA is already compressed to the nominal level. However, in the case of photo data – especially RAW or TIFF formatted data – there IS room for data compression and you will see both higher performance and higher capacity for a given tape. In fact, we just witnessed a large collection (100’s of TB) of NASA black and white TIFF image data compress at over 8.5:1.
The good news is that the adaptive compression algorithms used in tape drives (all, not just LTO) is smart enough to recognize non-compressible data and just pass it through to the tape as it is received.
75MB/sec is the average for LTO-4 and non-compressible data, so your 110MB/sec is indicative of a good level of compression on your image data.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
LTO is more future proof than say – PATA or IDE hard disks… We just had to hunt down an adapter that could mount an old PATA DMA1 drive. We found it, but I doubt that we’ll be able to find such an adapter in another 5 years.
When you deal with technology, migration needs to be part of your plan if you’re looking at more than a few years of retention. Even if you use SATA disks today, there’s no guarantee that any computer available in 10 years will be able to connect and mount them.
If you do look at a third party archival solution, ask them how they migrate their data container(s) from one technology to another to protect from this situation.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
BTW – the issue that our team reported to you with the SL-3 is related to it’s quality of build and longevity. BRU PE and BRU Server will work fine with it – as long as it works. In the more than 15 years that we’ve been distrusting this unit, Quantum has never been able to provide us with a test unit (7 to date) that lasted more than a few hundred trips through the tape changing test.
When the unit works, BRU works in much the same way that YoYattaID will work with it as Martin says. But, when it breaks, there’s nothing that ANY software can do to work around the issues that occur. We just prefer to inform our customers of this problematic history and suggest alternatives to the SL-3. There’s a reason that the SL-3 is priced so low – this really is a living example of “you get what you pay for.” Any other Quantum library will provide a much more successful and long lasting solution.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
It’s the RR 2722. If you didn’t purchase it from us, you will need to update the card’s BIOS and make sure that you get their tape-ready driver. HPT is still shipping cards with the older firmware and it doesn’t support Tape or Library devices (Type 1 and Type 8).
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
BRU Producer’s Edition and BRU Server both support tape libraries as libraries.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
We’re getting far afield from a PP topic and I apologize. I am looking forward to the native support on Windows, though.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Just curious, but so many folks have gone after QT on Windows as a potential hole, but no one has been able to demonstrate that the “potential” exploit can even be achieved.
Is this just a “sky is falling” reaction because Apple has withdrawn further development of the product?
Granted, I’d rather see PP, AE, AME, etc. deal with the formats natively, but the “Chicken Little” effect seems to be the reasoning behind the reports that I can find in the ether…
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!