Tape Reliability for Archive

[Sproketz]

The use of data tape storage has been discussed before so this thread is not to rehash whether tape is too "old school" or not.

For now, until new archive technologies arrive that are reliable and affordable, tape will remain a viable option.

I am looking for personal experiences good or bad with backup to the various data tape formats.

My primary job is editing and I have used DLT many times to back up edit sessions including all the digitized source footage. Slow going, you just let it go overnight. Never had any problems. Always able to bring everything back when needed.

But other people HAVE HAD PROBLEMS, so I would like to hear if you have lost data or had problems with any of the data formats.

DLT, LTO, SAIT, based on the experiences of people on this forum what is the reliability of each?

Is one safer than the other?

Is one copy on data tape acceptable or do you need two, or three for raw master footage.

Personally, I have had too many hard drive failures. Numerically not alot, but ANY loss of raw footage is unacceptable to me. I would not feel safe without three copies of raw footage , stored seperately, when using hard drives.

Any stories to tell?

[Sproketz]

Thanks regista,

Looks like the drives are reasonably priced. Are you attaching the drive via scsi. I looked online a bit and seems like these drives are mainly scsi with one or two internal IDE drives.

Are you backing up to one copy?

[Sproketz]

That sounds like a good balance of safety and speed, having at least one tape backup and one on disk. I assume you mean hard disks and not dvd's.

Two tapes plus the drive seems like alot of work but would certainly have a high confidence level. Especially with the kind of high value images that could be coming off Red, redundancy is crucial.

What drive are you using that has FireWire 800?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm currently using the single-slot desktop version of the VXA-2 unit. It's great. My only complaint has been the rising costs of VXA-2 tapes. They're about $60 now, which is a real problem given that LTO-3 and DLT-S4 are double or more the capacity for the same price.... I'm hoping something great comes around with LTO-4 and DLT-S5 later this year. A multi-slot loader using gigabit ethernet and/or FW800 would be ideal on that front. This determination to keep using SCSI as the only interface on most tape hardware is really getting annoying...

[Jeremy Newmark]

Jeff,

You're in Golden, so call up Quantum in Boulder or Englewood and get a demo of the A-Series drives working over Gigabit Ethernet. I saw the SDLT version in Denver earlier this year, I would assume they could give you a demo of the LTO version at this point (Since it is supposed to be shipping next month).

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yeah, I'm aware the gig-E models are available now... I'm holding out for my RED and potentially LTO-4 and DLT S5. I have seen a few of the SDLT4 gig-E drives in action and they're nice. However, I'd still like to see some of the larger options move over from being only SCSI and/or fiber channel. I know it's coming, I don't have anything to worry about. Especially if I'm waiting until later this year to buy.

And I'll get the demos too, maybe even demo units to play with... I've got friends at Quantum, StorageTek, Seagate and Exabyte facilities. :)

[Sproketz]

I did a search and found this concerning LTO-3 Gigabit Ethernet.

http://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=105&postid=857572

It sounds very good. Very high speed. MXF aware. Access subclips by timecode or metadata. Networkable.

MSRP of $7,950 is a good chunk of change for individuals but for larger shops this might be the ticket.

I am wondering if anyone rents equipment like this.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

We had a thread discussing this one a while back... The MXF awareness is probably a bad thing. Seeing how most manufacturers can't quite agree on the finer details of MXF spec. P2 DVCPRO[HD] and XDCAM MXF differ for example.

But the drive itself does look like a promising option. I'm hoping to see more of this sort of thing over the next several months and with lower prices.

[Jeremy Newmark]

MSRP of $7,950 is a good chunk of change for individuals but for larger shops this might be the ticket.

Yes it is a good chunk of change, but if you were to compare it to video decks, then it is actually fairly cheap.


I am wondering if anyone rents equipment like this.

The storage industry is in the very early stages of tapping into the video market, however once certain workflows emerge and become more mainstream, then I'm sure will start to see companies renting this kind of stuff, just like decks.

[Sproketz]

That press release mentions record speeds of 6X real-time for DVCPro100.

I assume close to realtime for Red data?

When I read that I was immediately thinking "tape deck".

And yes, it's cheap compared to a tape deck.

But of course it's not a delivery format so you will still eventually need an HD-Cam or D5 deck if you are releasing for television.

Back to my original question, has anyone had bad experiences with LTO or is it pretty much bombproof?

When I read up on VXA it looked like Exabyte was going out of it's way to test and push VXA as high reliability and high durability under adverse conditions.

[Sproketz]

Before starting this thread I searched the forum for "LTO" and "DLT" with no results. I just searched on "tape backup" and got results and see there has been discussion on this. What I still don't see in the older threads is any real-world comments on the reliability of data tape formats. And I have brought it up because I have seen comments on other forums citing "failed tapes" and lost data from DLT and other formats.

From what I have now read, it seems like VXA is highly reliable, or at least they are trying hard. I have heard one or two stories about data loss with LTO. Several times I have seen stories with DLT problems. I have not heard anything one way or another regarding safety of SAIT.

[Ace]

I think it will be important that for RED footage to be bulletproof archival, that it be stored in a Linear fashion so that recovery is possible even if part of the data is damaged. So you could actually view the footage in realtime as you rewind and forward the tape as you do with video. So maybe the frames are stored as seperate frames accross the tape lineage. This way, if say anything were to happen to a part of the tape, you could potentially snip and sticky tape it back together and lose a few frames at most.. Im not too sure how quicktime files work, but I hope its not a matter of "if one part of it is corrupt, its all corrupt".

[S. Um]

I think one reason you haven't heard a lot of stories here about tape failures is because tape has mainly been used in the IT industry, and most people on this site work in the movie or video industry. If you want some horror stories, you might want to search on an IT bulletin board.

Also, many people who back up to tape never actually use the information on the tapes, so they may never discover the tape's actual reliability. When I hear stories about tape failure, I wonder how many failures go undiscovered. On the other hand, we use our hard drives every day, so we notice right away if the hard drive fails.

The demand for digital media storage is just starting to boom, so right now there's no clear cut best solution for archiving. And there may never be. I'm just hoping that in a year or so the dust will settle and a few good solutions will emerge.

[Sproketz]

I think one reason you haven't heard a lot of stories here about tape failures is because tape has mainly been used in the IT industry, and most people on this site work in the movie or video industry. If you want some horror stories, you might want to search on an IT bulletin board.

Could be true for alot of shooters who only recently have had to deal with archiving original source material.

Since the advent of non-linear editing, tape backups have been done frequently in edit bays. Two post companies I have worked for have been saving their projects to DLT for about the last 8 years. Another I know uses SAIT. As already mentioned, VXA and LTO are in use.

In 2003 Sony started selling this package:
http://www.zones.com/site/product/?id=000944435&zone=zbs?PFX

Not sure if "Rough Cut" is still being sold as a package but it's claim to fame was software that ran in the background during editing to keep the backup current. Or you could set it to backup at night if it slowed the edit down.

So data recorders have been in post for a while.

Also, DLT has been the main medium for interfacing DVD authoring with replication facilities.