[Tim Jones]

Manual? We don’t need no stinking manual! 🙂

I learned that from Diana Weynand’s excellent book:

https://revuptransmedia.com/index.php/component/tienda/products/view/2/19

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

For now, I recommend Novaback from Novastor. However, after the first of the year, the Windows version of BRU Producer’s Edition will be available. Fully compatible with the OS X version (as well as all of the other platforms).

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

That could simply be a difference in things like Finder info (.DS_Store files) and things like Spotlight and fsevents overhead.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

The only certain way to get this resolved is to disable system sleep. There are a couple of cheater tools out there that mimic keyboard or mouse activity, but they haven’t always worked in my tests. My systems are all set to sleep the monitor after 30 minutes, but they are all set with the system to not sleep – ever.

Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to disable “App Nap” for FCP X (single click / select App icon, select “Get Info”, check the box in the info panel).

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

You may also need to hack the supported cards list even after you install the CUDA drives as outlined here:

Using CUDA GPU with Unsupported Nvidia Card

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

Warning: Vendor opinion follows 😉 –

BRU PE 3.1 has upcoming support for proper handling of your complete FCP X environment (you can write to disk, but we recommend tape for obvious reasons). Here’s a video preview of the workflow:

BRU PE FCP X Backup workflow

If all goes well next week, we’re about 6 days away from the 3.1 release.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

Martin – have you contacted support on this? I suspect that there is just some step out of sequence in what you’re doing. Give them a call at 480-505-1814 or pen a support ticket at support.bru.com. The guys are very quick to respond.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

I can answer these from both a user and a vendor perspective, but YMMV.

Because our BRU products can get to any file on an LTO tape (4, 5, or 6) in under 5 minutes when you need it back, LTO makes a very reasonable nearline solution. Using one customer’s workflow as an example:

Working with a remote shoot location

• Projects are duplicated from the remote Unity ISIS array to a local disk array over a very big pipe
• On the local end, the folder structure is checked and fixed
• The operator then creates a job and runs it to two tape destinations at the same time
• Once completed, one set is packaged and vaulted while the second set is moved into a larger tape library for their nearline
• Since the BRU operation verified both sets of data, the operator clears the local array for the next set of data
• Lather, rinse, repeat

At this point, if the data is needed online, the operator searches the catalogs for the folders or clips needed and restores them from the large library.

The restore takes around 6 minutes to start – 80 secs± to load the tape from its slot and get it ready in the drive and then up to 4 minutes to start restoring the data depending on where on the tape the selected data physically resides. The actual time to restore is, of course, dependent on the amount of data, but LTO-5 can restore at over 140MB/sec and LTO-6 tops 180MB/sec (at least with BRU).

This same workflow can work with a smaller operation and a standalone tape drive. Just be sure to work out a tape labeling scheme that makes it easy for you to find the proper physical tape when you need to retrieve something. The key being that by creating 2, verified and audited copies, you can now safely clear your online storage for current jobs and slow or stop the spiraling mountain of disk purchases.

For reference, if you need to restore from LTO-5 tape, it will deliver data at 500GB/hour – that’s 3 hours for a full 1.5TB tape. For an LTO-6 tape, that number increases to 640GB/hour – 4 hours for a completely full tape. This is far faster than a NAS over 1GbE (360GB/hour) – unless you are using 10GbE for connectivity.

Is this “generally accepted?” That is a good question. Most of us are creating completely new workflows and there really aren’t many “norms” for this new world. It really is a “what works for my workflow” that ends up mattering.

For me and very many of our customers, using LTO for nearline storage works very well.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

Thanks for sharing these, Simon. Always fun to learn new techniques.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

On the Restore Panel
Select the tape
(the archives wil be displayed)
Press the Back button to go back to the tapes
(this is changed in the upcoming 3.1 release)
Right Click on the tape set entry
Select “Create BRUSetta Stone CD” from the menu
Add your additional files (invoice, read me, etc.) to the folder
Burn the disk

As an aside, once the folder is created, instead of burning a CD/DVD, you can also drag the folder onto a USB flash drive and create it that way if you don’t have a DVD burner.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!