Tom Goldberg
Forum Replies Created
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Since before OS X, Apple has always had the ability to attach metadata (resource forks) to files (a.k.a. data forks). Use of this is being phased out but a few programs rely on this data (i.e. pre v6 FCP). Extended file attributes are a newer way to keep track of file metadata.
The safest choice is to archive this information. The downside of doing so means tracking over twice as many files in your tape’s catalog – this metadata is captured as “AppleDouble” files on any Linux system like Cache-A’s.
If you are archiving data that you know doesn’t need this info (i.e. DPX sequences), turn this option off.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
Hi Randy,
Gary has done an excellent job of answering your questions about our products. I thought I’d jump in here and provide a little additional information.
As Gary says, our appliances are fully self contained and do not require any additional equipment or even any software on the client. We include a built-in share from 2 to 4TB for you to stage your data or to restore to (bigger shares coming at IBC). It is useful to have a monitor and keyboard around if you want to operate them directly, but most folks drive from our web page user interface.
Archive data rates over a GbEthernet network can run anywhere from 40 to 75MB/s depending upon your source and network. But you can directly attach storage via USB, FireWire and eSATA where we’ve seen archive data rates well in excess of 100MB/s.
We have a variety of workflows as you will see in our manual. Many of these involve staging your data on our shared drives and doing so is no different than multiple users accessing any other NAS – the more folks doing it, the more the available network and disk bandwidth is shared so, with the current generation of product, things are going to slow down. As we previewed at last NAB, a “Power-Cache” model has 10GbEthernet and more drives in the share, so this will improve in future products. We also encourage users to think about good archiving practices like sorting data for projects on to their own tapes and not allowing everyone’s data to be intermingled.
We characterize our products as “archive appliances” because we try to make them toaster-easy to install and operate, but can’t really approximate that level of ease with a product that has as many features and capabilities as ours. Lots of our customers experience no ‘gotchas’ getting started but some do, and our support team can always help you sort out networking and workflow issues. You can add 3rd party software that works well with our systems – like ShotPut, R3DDM, FCS or CatDV, but you don’t need any of these unless you want that additional functionality.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
We have experience with and have seen no problems with HP tapes.
I’d keep an eye on it (or ear as the case may be). Let archiving errors be your guide. Be sure to keep an eye on “lost space” as that figure may be indicative of problems writing to tape.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
We go through a lot of these exact drives and while they make all kinds of noises, they don’t generally do anything I would call a squeal – kinda depends on what a squeal sounds like to you.
My guess would be this is more likely a situation with the media… what brand of tapes are you using? While all LTO media supposedly meets the requirements of the consortium, we’ve seen some brands not performing as well as others. Did you try another brand tape?
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
Thanks to the impetus provided by Mr. Zelin, I have finally posted our user manuals on the Cache-A web site. Sorry that it took so long.
Please note that we request your email and other info in order to download them – I hope that’s not asking too much!
Oh yeah – here’s the direct URL: https://cache-a.com/manualform.php
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
We brought up a Mac Pro with LTFS here at Cache-A as a reference system. It definitely was not a project for the technically challenged. I can’t speak for the IBM version, but the HP install required a few tweeks beyond the instructions (creating a log file in your Library, changing some permissions). Also be aware you’ll be using Terminal to launch and unmount, and maybe run file system checks and so on.
Advertisement: we’re now shipping our version 2.0 software with LTFS included. We have built-in workflows that address these issues and all the other well known LTFS limitations (like ordering files for large restores, a major inherent limitation of LTFS with Finder or Windows Explorer).
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
Hi Les,
AXF seems to have come and gone and come again… it is our understanding that it is still in SMPTE committee and is not even an RP yet. Also we believe the principle adopters will only be the 1 or 2 companies participating in the specification.
Cache-A will certainly continue to watch this development closely and add this to our bag of tricks if it looks like it will bring real benefits to our customers. If any readers of this thread are fans of AXF, we’d like to hear about it.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
Brian, thanks for post. IMO a Prime-Cache would be ideal for your application and not overkill at all (of course, full disclosure, I am biased).
While you would attach one of our boxes to your CatDV workstation via GbE network, this gives you a great deal of flexibility even when other users aren’t involved. First, you’d get a drop point to archive any data you have that isn’t tracked by CatDV, and everything goes into our catalog for easy searching regardless of whether it is a video asset put there by CatDV or a 3d model or an expense report you decided to archive. You’d also have the flexibility to direct connect those external drives to the Prime-Cache and migrate your data to tape without even going through your Mac.
And because our solutions scale up to full automated libraries, you can track as much shelf-stored media as you want and know that it will work in libraries whenever you’re ready.
As to stand-alone applications, while we require a network, it can be as simple as 1 ethernet cable between your Mac and the Cache-A.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
We do have a few partners who rent Cache-A appliances. Our current list is posted here. You may also want to look over our dealer list here – many of them might be encouraged to rent our products too.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com -
Well thank you for the compliment as well Bob.
It sounds like Retrospect has come a long since I last looked. I would note that your Retrospect tapes are still written in their proprietary format only readable by a copy of that software… and they are now on their third (or is it their 4th?) owner now with Roxio.
We write with tar format, and open standard that’s been around since the 70’s. And with our next release and on LTO-5 drives our appliances will have the option of writing with the new LTFS open standard.
Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com