Tim Jones
Forum Replies Created
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This post should probably be a blog post rather than a reply as it’s a bit long.
Such claims seem to be a regular decree in looking at tape since back in the Reel to Reel and QIC (Quarter Inch Cartridge) days. Tapes were said to have a life expectancy of “this many passes” or “this many load / unload cycles”. As we’ve moved into an age where these “passes” are harder and harder to measure, the vendors have moved to the “number of years on the shelf” discussion.
As people that don’t truly understand tape technology and how it actually works (an IBM tape sales person that I spoke with last week is actually still promoting LTO-6 as a 6TB solution to the M&E industry) get into the selling side of things, they tend to speak “truths” based upon someone else’s marketing claims rather than hard knowledge. A leap in analogy, but image if your doctor told you that you could take 12, 200mg Ibuprofen in a 24 hr period safely over a long period because some marketing rep said so instead of actually learning about the affects of such a dosage on your body. This is sort of what’s going on in the tape industry.
The real problem is that the LTO tape technology hasn’t been around long enough to actually determine the proper life expectancy on a tape in normal use. Also, what is normal use? Tape use in a business environment where tapes are overwritten on a weekly or monthly basis versus tape use in the M&E arena where tapes are generally written and shelved until data is required are two very different use models.
On the other hand, some organizations have lab environments where tapes are truly beat on with extreme prejudice. For example, we have QIC250 (DC6000) tapes that were written in 1988 and DLT40 tapes from 1991 that we still access today with full success. We have DDS-1 DAT tapes that were written on the original Archive MaynStream DAT 1300 (1991) that we still read today:
BTW – that DAT drive is serial number 2.As I mentioned, we beat the heck out of tapes. We store them in plastic boxes on Gorilla Rack shelves, stacked on shelves in our QA lab, and even on the floor in the support area. None of these methods is “recommended”, but rather simply an example of how much abuse a tape can take and still return its data.
At one COMDEX (1996, IIRC), we worked with the Ecrix (Exabyte) VXA team and went so far as to freeze and thaw a tape, dunk a tape into hot coffee, and actually store a tape at 120ºF overnight. The data stored on all three tapes was fully recovered at the end of the week.
In disaster recovery planning seminars that I present, I carry a batch of DAT tapes in my pockets and throw them into the audience inviting the audience to throw me their laptops. You can guess how many laptops get thrown back …
Am I recommending that you store your tapes in this haphazard manner or mistreat your tapes? Absolutely not. However, LTO (and other tape types) are nowhere near as fragile as some would have you believe.
Imagine, the industry was able to recover full episodes of “I Love Lucy” and “The Honeymooners” off of 50 year old 3/4″ and Quad reels. Tape technology (backing substrate, glue, metal particulate, cartridge design, tape path feed management) has improved drastically since those tapes were created, so how can anyone assume (other than to be safe and CYA in military terminology) that modern technology will be any less long lived?
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Very true, but sometimes there are Database “things” that need to be done to make sure that the data tables are handled properly – table transaction locking, user locking, journal log generation, etc.. This is especially true for multiuser databases where the table could be open and modified while being backed up. Most databases have SQL commands to enable backups, that’s why I asked for clarification.
The issue is that without taking care of these things before you backup the database, you could end up with an unstable environment on restore.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
When you say database, do you mean an actual database like Filemaker, MySQL, or Oracle, or do you mean a collection of files that you manage? There are different approaches depending on what you’re actually working with.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Bill, double check your settings when you partition the drive. I use a number of these with no ill affects. My drives are formatted as ExFAT, though for cross platform compatibility. The only change I make when I repartition them is to set the “Options” for the partition table type to GUID.
HTH,
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Interesting – I use FCS 2 and never new that.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Having worked with all of those formats, I believe that using the Mac + Windows setting in Toast really is the safest and most compatible way to do what you’re trying to do. You’ll also find that setting allows you to access the content on other platforms like Linux and Solaris.
However, since you’re probably not dealing with modern files that still have resource forks attached, you could save yourself some time and space by choosing just the ISO9660+ format since Mac’s can read those as well.
It’s an easy enough thing to test, so I build a Windows / ISO 9660 burn and see what you think.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
On the other hand, I’ve played the “edit the support cards list” game on a couple of Nvidia based systems and made sure that my drivers were all the tastes from Nvidia and Premiere Pro and After Effects have actually played well on those supposedly unsupported GPUs.
On the -OTHER- other hand (couldn’t resist), that Thinkpad is a proven beast AND I suspect that you can upgrade the memory.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
What about creating a marker at the start of your section named “My Section Start” and a marker at the end of your section named “My Section End”?
Markers are just a point in the timeline. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be markers, they would be sections or chapters, etc…
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Here’s what I was told back when I first learned about h.264 – “h.264 is like FM radio while ProRes is like your CD player. Neither is a pristine vinyl album, but ProRs has much more fidelity than h.264.”
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
FCP X ProRes is Apple ProRes. If you’re shooting 1080P and sending to ProRes, get the ProRes version.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!
