LTO-4 drive, BRU & HBA? [Archive]

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Taylor F.

07-03-2011, 02:54 PM

I'm looking for a bit of advice regarding LTO-4 backups.

I run a small production company in northern British Columbia and my needs are pretty simple: I have a 6TB Raid array that I'm constantly filling up, and I want a safe, reliable solution to archive footage and projects to.

From what I can gather from these forums, BRU software would be my best route.
Given that I'll be backing up incrementally, as needed, and total files per tape will be well under the 100,000 file limit, would BRU LE be adequate for me for now, or will I require BRU PE? From the Tolis Group website, it sounds like LE is limited to 250GB/archive session? Not quite sure what this means.

I'm thinking of getting this drive:

http://www.provantage.com/quantum-tc-l42bn-ey-b~7QUAT0AT.htm

And running a Mac Pro – what sort of HBA would work for me? Is it possible to use a 4-lane PCIe card, or is x8 required?

Last question: Would I be able to connect a USB drive to my Mac Pro and archive the contents to tape with this setup?

Any help to point me in the right direction is appreciated.

Taylor

Alex Carr

07-03-2011, 10:59 PM

DO NOT buy into Quantum, the latest Firmware is no longer supported. I've given up trying to get it to work. Even on windows. I can't get my LSi updated to support the new Quantum firmware. Quantum does not have support for osx as the previous firmware did, Yet Quantum didnt work at all on Atto H380. I had to buy a Hp LTO-4 Deck. And thats as solid as it gets, I used to use BRU LE. BRU PE has more options, but LE can do the job too. I'd go for Hp if you want it to work as soon as you open the box.

Taylor F.

07-04-2011, 04:23 PM

Thanks for the reply, Alex.

When you say the latest firmware isn't supported, are you referring to the model A Quantum drives (as opposed to the model B drives)?

Tolis Group mentions this on this page:

http://www.tolisgroup.com/products/software/macosx/le/devices.php

Or should I forget about Quantum altogether?

Kaku Ito

07-04-2011, 05:58 PM

I had the old firmware for my halfheight Quantum LTO-4 and it was working fine with LSI card but not with ATTO R380, then I had it updated to the latest then it is working fine with R380 now. Not that I want to recommend Quantum but just to inform you that I'm having working unit/firmware.

Kevin Wild

07-04-2011, 07:33 PM

Forget Quantum & Retrospect altogether and call Bru for a turnkey solution! We struggled forever with the Quantum/Retro combo and were left hanging with a ton of tapes that their new version won't even support. It's VERY ugly.

We switched to Bru's solution and it has worked flawlessly...without any errors on any tapes. Can't recommend more highly.

Good luck.

Kevin

Nir Shelter

07-04-2011, 07:42 PM

Hey guys
Does anyone have experience with Tandberg decks? What do you think of these as LTO options?
Thanks,
Nir.

Alex Carr

07-05-2011, 08:36 PM

Kaku Ito

07-05-2011, 10:19 PM

I haven't had any bad experience like Kevin did but so far, I made few 800GB backups with no error at this point. If you don't mind trying then please do so, but we should take Kevin's warning carefully, too.

Taylor F.

07-05-2011, 11:28 PM

Thanks for weighing in, guys.
This is one area where it pays to be a little extra careful, hey? I'm happy hacking my way through most things, but LTO is sort of a last-line of defense for your data.
Maybe an extra $1,000 for a turnkey BRU system is a small premium to pay for a reliable setup, but therein lies my wondering.
I guess what I'm really trying to decide is if I can get a really basic LTO system running for around $2K, without compromising on the robustness of it all.

It's great to hear other people's experiences with this stuff - the decision to go with BRU and not Retrospect was an easy one, reading through these forums.

Anyway, time's running out - I'm getting to that point of losing sleep, worrying about all my terabytes. :001_smile:

(But I'm off on a wildlife shoot tomorrow morn, so I'll be incommunicado for a week...)

Taylor

Andreas Herzog

07-06-2011, 02:58 AM

I would also check out the "new" LTFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape_File_System) . Its supported on LTO5 drives. Is open source and are supported on all platforms.

Taylor F.

07-30-2011, 04:39 PM

After lots of pondering, I've decided to go with one of Tolis Group's turnkey solutions.

2 more questions though:

- Anyone have good or bad experiences with specific brands of tape? My tape drive will be HP.
- Is there any disadvantage to using compression? Ie reduced transfer speed, taxing of CPU, reduced robustness? By "compression" I'm referring to LTO4's 800GB native/1.6TB compressed capacity.

Taylor

Jeff Kilgroe

07-30-2011, 10:29 PM

Not too many manufacturers make LTO / Ultrium tapes and they all must be made to certain specs, so you don't have to worry about it too much. I stick with Fuji tapes, they seem to be very good, have proven very reliable and are readily available. Shopping around, even looking for bulk vendors on eBay or elsewhere, I can usually buy them for $20/tape or even a bit less and that includes shipping. My last tape purchase was 40 tapes (two unopened 20-pack cartons) off ebay and after shipping, it came to less than $17/tape.

The BRU kits are a good way to go. They give you everything you need and you don't have to worry about learning what works with what, or what cable you might need if you try to piece a kit together on your own. LTO-5 is more attractive to some right now because it's the newer technology and can fit double the amount of storage on a tape. However, the Ultrium-5 rated tapes are still rather expensive by comparison, more than double the price of LTO-4, so... I don't personally use too many of those, even in my newer LTO-5 unit.

With LTO-4 and BRU, you can plan on about 750GB per tape when archiving most already compressed data like R3D's, AVC, etc.. The HP LTO-4 unit, if you have the desktop half-height 1760, can sustain about 70-75MB/s writes with bursts going up to about 80MB/s. So, given that, it takes about 3 hours to write a tape. Read speeds are similar, but just a touch faster, so if you do a verify pass on your tape set (and you should), it will double that time. LTO-5 is double the speed too, another thing to consider, it writes at about 150MB/s. The full-height LTO-4 18xx model is also faster than the half-height LTO-4 model. IMO, if you're going to spend the extra money, go with an LTO-5 drive over the full height LTO-4.

The compression is mostly worthless, on by default with the hardware. If there are a lot of text files or easily compressible files, it makes a difference. Just leave it on. Most big data doesn't benefit, but you'll know it when it does. No performance penalty for leaving it on.

Michael Romano

07-31-2011, 01:37 AM

The BRU kits are a good way to go.

Jeff is right - For those looking for an all in one solution from BRU, check this link:
http://www.productionbackup.com/info/bundles.php?link=6#6

Taylor F.

08-03-2011, 11:06 AM

Great info, thanks for spelling it out so clearly.
Time to pull the trigger on this stuff!

Cheers.

craigjkharris

12-31-2011, 09:53 AM

I am now a big fan of Cache-A (http://cache-a.com/).
A bit more expensive but well worth it. They come with a nice SSD slot in the back too.

Mark Whatmore

01-03-2012, 07:23 AM

Kenn Michael

01-05-2012, 06:35 PM

I've been trying to use both 'Retrospect' and 'Bru' but can't make either operate as a reliable method of backing up and restoring from LTO. I've only backed up about 10 tapes and despite the fact that the backup was verified and all OK I can't now restore the media, neither of these bits of software seems to be able to import media that was recorded to LTO in another programme. 'Bru' have apparently diss-continued their LE for MAC, so beware, LTO media might last forever but it can be hard to get at it.

BRU has been working great for me. No issues with restoring data. Also, no backup software can read data that was written by another program. BRU, unlike Retrospect or Mezzo (anybody remember them) allows a version of their restore-only software to be downloaded for free so that nobody needing to restore data is left out in the cold in the even that Tolis goes belly up (like Mezzo did).