[Tim Jones]

For what you’re trying to achieve, the Paragon HFS+ solution is very good. It’s still faster than a standalone spindle can run. The only time I’ve seen a performance hit was on a very fast array (8 disks) and even then it was only a few MB/sec compared to the Mac.

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

[Tim Jones]

Actually, you can mount and access HFS+ disks on a Windows system using Paragon’s tools.

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows

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

[Tim Jones]

Very legit and very good plugins and templates. Fox is very friendly, as well.

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

[Tim Jones]

This is a perfect scenario for using tape as the long-term legacy/completed project content.

By segregating the legacy components onto tape, you don’t have to worry about cross contamination regardless of the status of derivation works or new media. The legacy components are always a restore away (not as complex or time consuming as some would have you believe). And, you don’t need to maintain long term spinning disk collections since a tape can sit unpowered and unaccessed on a shelf for many, many years.

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

[Tim Jones]

Hi Jeffrey,

Be aware that LTFS is wasteful in its format and layout, so you’re already getting as good as it gets with any method that you are using to write to the tape. However, this may not be a bad thing since part of the overhead is keeping track of the various file metadata. In much the same manner as a 2TB hard drive really only provides around 1.83TB of usable space due to filesystem format needs, the same happens with LTFS.

As for efficiency in writing, as long as your source volume is capable of maintaining the native speed of the tape drive, you should be okay. The other key is to stay away from the various GUI file managers – Explorer, Finder, Dolphin, etc. – when copying files to an LTFS volume. Also, be sure that things like Spotlight and Volume indexing are disabled on the LTFS volume. These all try to do “GUI” things when they are manipulating a disk volume such as generating previews, mapping metadata, and updating timestamps – all of which cause unnecessary media access. That access on an LTFS tape means that the write is paused, the tape is repositioned, the changes are generated, the tape is sent back to the index partition, more info is written, the tape is then reset to the data partition and repositioned to the EOD so that the next group of files can be written. By using command line tools like cp, copy, and xcopy, you will reduce, if not remove, those issues and greatly improve write performance to the tape.

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

[Tim Jones]

Interesting that you ask this because BRU is quite capable of cascading drives like this. We’ve not included that feature within BRU PE’s GUI, but the BRU I/O engine that drives it is capable of this and is something that some of our larger research customers use. For example, you could issue this command line in a terminal:

bru -cvvvf ntape0 -f ntape1 -f ntape2 -f ntape3 -b 2m -L “Large Job Cascade – 4 drives” /Volumes/Array/Folder

BRU would then write to the 1st drive, fill it, move to the 2nd, fill it and continue through to the 4th drive – only prompting for additional tapes after filling the 4th (then restarting on the 1st).

If you get stumped and are comfortable with the command line, give our team a call to discuss it further.

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

[Tim Jones]

Hi Randy,

Aside from the fact that LTFS is normally slow on Windows, you are correct that 22MB/sec is a bit out of the norm. Are you dragging and dropping the files in Explorer? That will really slow things down as Explorer tries to keep up with the new files on the tape.

Try changing your workflow to use the COPY or XCOPY commands from PowerShell or a Cmd terminal to copy the data. This prevents Explorer from constantly trying to update the folder info on the tape.

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

[Tim Jones]

CatDV Desktop and Pegasus work well with both 10.12 and 10.13 releases of Mac OS.

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

[Tim Jones]

So long as you are running 3.1.23, you’re good to go with the update.

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

[Tim Jones]

Since the camera already compressed the data, the only option to save further space is to transcode it to a lower, and lossy format.

Or, while it’s more outlay, you could consider digital tape (LTO) for all of your off-lay operations. Your initial cost is a bit more than another disk, but with LTO-6 tapes running under $30, you’re looking at secure offline storage of less than 1¢ per GB.

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