Tim Jones
Forum Replies Created
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That’s the problem with disk drives in this scenario – the default OS drivers expect them to be single entities, so if you pop a drive, it’s no longer available so the OS drops it.
One solution (assuming your editing software can handle it) is to create a folder in your user folder and then place symlinks (not Aliases) via the Terminal in that folder that point to your volumes. For instance:
Your physical disks are named:
Shots Drive A
Shots Drive B
...
Shots Drive F
In your user’s folder, create a folder named “Drive Links”
Open the Terminal and cd into that folder
cd ~/Drive\ Links
Mount your drives in sequence
Create the symlinks
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Shots\ Drive\ A ./Shots\ Drive\ A
(repeat for each drive as you mount it changing A to B, C, you get the pattern) )
As you mount each volume, it’s symlink will become a valid target, but when you eject each drive, the symlink remains and yourapplictions won’t get a notice that the drive has gone offline.I can’t promise that this will work for all applications, but it does for Smoke 13, After Effects, and Premiere Pro (it doesn’t for FCP X because of their dependence on physical drives) and it works for most other “general” apps.
HTH,
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
While disk is an easy solution in the immediate time frame, there is an option 4:
Purchase a DAT160 USB drive and backup to tape. Tapes hold 80GB+ each and cost $12-$20 each. The drive costs around $1K and works with any USB-compatible Mac. There are a few software variations available for the Mac, but our BRU Producer’s Edition provides full fast access (start restoring any file on a tape in 90 secs or less) and catalog searching makes it easy to recover a volume, folder, or just a few specific files.
Other plus points for using a tape drive (and a USB one in this case):
- No Thunderbolt required
- Easily stored media
- Very sturdy media – not fragile like disks
- 20± Years of proven data retention – conservative estimates reach into the 50 years range
- We have 20 year old DDS-1 DAT tapes that have over 5K write / read cycles that are still 100% recoverable
- You can search / browse the contents of offline tapes without mounting them.
- A USB DAT 160 drive can be also used under Windows, Linux, even Solaris or HP-UX if you need to move data to another platform (depending on the software – BRU is available on all systems).
Minuses:
- You do need additional software to recover your files, but most solutions work to make it easy to both create and access the tapes.
- You need to use the software to search the catalogs for the offline tapes
If your capacity demand is greater (and your budget allows for it), you can also get much larger and faster tape solutions that you can use via Thunderbolt. For instance, our base LTO-5 bundle starts at under $4K, but the tapes each hold 1.5TB and move your data at 140MB/sec.
In over 30 years of working with tape-based archival / backup operations, I have never seen a non-physically damaged tape fail where the problem wasn’t actually caused by the software being used. We have QIC-150 tapes (from 1988) that we can still restore all of the data from. The media that you use today is a much improved formulation compared to tapes made 20 years ago.
From my experience, generic disks that are used for backup usually become usurped back to general storage as your need for more disk space grows. Using tape allows you to use your disks for online storage while protecting your data with a medium that is more oriented for backup / archival storage from the initial design standpoint. And, verified tapes allow you to clean old data off of your spinning disks while keeping the data available, making the need for adding more disk storage easier to cope with.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Hi Simon,
The ATTO 3Gb series cards are not supported on Thunderbolt.
They’ve been end of life for a couple of years and there’s been no new drivers for quite a while.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
We’ve tested a lot of options around here and CatDV is still what we consider the best option. A very robust desktop tool that can be used standalone for a smaller environment and full, network enabled secure server options for larger environments and sharing.
Plus, CatDV has a forum here on the Cow.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Hi Folks,
Still no updates on the ATTO drivers’ release date. They’re still hedging about something even though we’ve provided solid testing results.
I’ll keep you all informed.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Hi Joakim and all,
Sorry for the lapse :-).
We’ve been pounding on the ATTO Beta drives with full success and we’ve reported this back to the ATTO engineers. I suspect that we’ll see an official update at the beginning of next week.
Tim
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Just wanted to clarify … BRU (it’s an acronym, not a word) also plays nice with Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, IRIX, A/IX, HP-UX, and a dozen or so antique (but still used) and embedded Unixes. And, our tapes are compatible across all of them with any compatible hardware. So you can’t get more cross-platform than that.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Of course, opinions about this vary, but nn that case, I’d recommend that you use the interface that you’re not currently using for storage to reduce latency and definitely don’t use the same disk for storage and scratch. FW-800 will always be faster than USB 2.0.
The key would be to not have your work drive and your render/scratch drive on the same interface.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Larry –
What kind of connectivity do you have for your external drives? That will make a big impact on the answer.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
I’ve a new rMBP and all I did was add the CUDA drivers and edit the supported cards list to add the 650M and things fly. It also helps that I’m running a 4 drive OCZ Vertex 4 array via Thunderbolt with the Echo Express Pro and the ATTO R680…
You will need to edit the supported CUDA cards list in the various app bundles since the GT650M is so new, but it works great. Here’s a howto that will provide the details:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/4373032
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!