[Tim Jones]

We don’t concatenate, we actually span as needed. If you need to write 6TB of data in a single job run, BRU will either prompt for tapes if you have a standalone drive or automatically switch and load tapes if you have a library. Drag, Drop, Click – done.

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

[Tim Jones]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Don’t worry about the ethernet transfers. You can only archive 1.5TBs at a time anyway.”

Jeremy,

Herb doesn’t have that single tape capacity issue :-). You should look at BRU – we’ll write to as many tapes as you need in a single op.

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

[Tim Jones]

I was the same ornery way with my FCP 7, but time and use has a way of wearing one down. Plus, FCP 7 doesn’t really take advantage of anything but the memory. Now, if Smoke 13 would quit crashing on my main system so I could do a real test …

Back to the archival workflow, for the Windows to Mac transfers, since the LTO-5 only runs at 140MB/sec, you’re only losing about 30MB/sec over GbE. It’s still a lot faster than Firewire :-). Plus, if you’re using a storage array for your media files, you could direct connect to the Mac as a way to speed that process up.

It really depends on the direction that you take once you dedicate to making the move and decide on the storage architecture.

Once you get close, drop me a note and let’s look at the options.

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

[Tim Jones]

I understand the logic with the Windows move – however, I did just breath new life into 2 of my 5,1’s by replacing the video cards with new 2GB Quadros and upping the RAM to 32GB. It’s like having completely new systems :-). Both Premiere and FCP X fly.

Absolutely on the move of the data and environment – that’s a big one for us.

However, a thought on the move from OS X to Windows – will you need to get rid of your Mac Pro system? As an option, you could repurpose the Mac to backup / archive management and let BRU Server run on the Mac to protect the Windows system and your new environment. This also means that your existing infrastructure doesn’t need to shift – zero learning curve.

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

[Tim Jones]

Ugh – that opening sentence should have read:

While our BRU Producer’s Edition platform is mainly aimed at the OS X platform, …

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

[Tim Jones]

Hi Ben,

Have you considered Precis from bitcentral? While it’s designed for News work, it will allow you to ingest multiple SDI / Analog sources into the digital format that you specify (and even transcode to others).

We’ve got a couple of high volume folks like yourself (but tapes in the 1,000s) working with it in the archival efforts.

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

[Tim Jones]

Nicholas,

There are a number of high capacity disk storage solutions out there and most of them – either SAS or Fibre Channel – can give you the capacity and performance that you need for such a project. The most important aspect of this is to not use consumer grade disks. We use and recommend the Seagate Constellation ES.2 3.5″ or Constellation.2 2.5″ drives for performance and long life. Using your existing ProRes 422 ingests will make for a good starting point.

The next step is where you will either succeed or fail in the long run – your DAM should offload as much of the management as possible once the data is put into the system.

My recommendation would be a combination of CatDV from SquareBox with their Enterprise server, one or two Worker Nodes and their web interface solution, This way, you can use your existing PR 422 media as your baseline and then transcode to other necessary formats using the CatDV Worker Nodes automatically. The web interface then would allow you to share the assets in a secure manner over the web.

For longer term archival, I would suggest an LTO-5 based solution. You can add the DAX FFA archival solution to the CatDV backend and BRU Server to archive the media to tape using a standalone drive or a silo-sized tape library system. For your capacity point, a 24 slot library with 1 or 2 LTO-5 drives will provide both the performance and capacity (36TB of uncompressed data in a single load out) at a very price competitive point.

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

[Tim Jones]

Hi Clark,

While I can definitely follow the logic behind your Windows choice, BRU solutions don’t require a dedicated system. You could easily be editing on a Mac Pro and performing BRU archives with the same machine.

I would just say to definitely give NovaBACKUP a look before you spend a lot of money on a Windows solution that’s more aimed at email and database discovery backup than the asset storage that you’re looking for. Sometimes, simpler really is better :-).

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

[Tim Jones]

Hi Herb,

While our BRU Server platform is mainly aimed at the OS X platform, BRU Server will provide full service for every platform that you use – including native Windows. While the server system itself (where the tape drive is attached) must be Linux, OS X, or FreeBSD, the agents are available for most every platform going today (and a few esoteric old timers).

You can easily archive data from any system to disk stage, tape, or both with easy restores from any archive to any authorized client system – meaning that you could backup assets from a Windows desktop or server and restore them fro use to an Unity ISIS on a Mac (or even a Firewire disk…). The other direction works as well. And, since all archives are compatible across all platforms, there’s no issue with data compatibility or filesystem discrepancies. An MXF is an MXF is an MXF … therefore, sharing data between NLE’s and compositors on different platforms is as easy as restoring the needed clips.

Additionally, BRU Server integrates directly with CatDV server and DAX FFA for total tape based archival and management of your assets and data in a manner that allows access even outside of the CatDV environment should the need arise.

If you would like to take a closer look, visit us at to download a fully functional, 30 day demo and see how easy all of this stuff can really be.

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

[Tim Jones]

Hi Herb,

BRU is the most cross platform archival and backup application out there. It’s available on every Operating system available with the exception of OS/400 and OpemVMS. Additionally, archives / tapes created with BRU on one platform are directly recoverable on another. While we don’t sell a Windows-specific version, we do have options for restoring files via network or directly onto a Windows system.

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