How to backup P2

[sarah staar]

I use Panasonics P2 system with Edius Broadcast and am very happy with it.

I shoot everything in HD so end up with a lot of footage that needs archiving. I normally end up with about 300gb of data per week !!!

This is to big for DVD and blue ray and rev pro.

I have been using a LTO 1 drive I got off ebay for £100 using windows backup.


This is very slow it takes about 10 hours to backup 100gb of data !! and another 10 hours to verify the data…

Also the windows backup utility is very basic. It cant even tell you what’s on a tape when you insert it in …

The only backup softwhare that works with LTO tape is for server machines.
There must be something better…….



What do you use to back up all that HD Data???

[xmephestox]

esata or firewire 800 raided drives might be a good bet for you if you want an external solution. or even going internal raided. but in the end, most of your speed is gonna be throttled at the speed of the p2 reader you have...

[sarah staar]

I need long term backup. I do not need to access the footage.

[Jay Rodriguez]

I've been wondering this myself lately. I've been burning dvd's which has been eating up alot of my time.

[hotchkiss]

I don't shoot as much footage as you per week- yikes ;-). I've given up on backing up to media, so I just use duplicate drives to back up all footage. One is stored off site, the other kept at hand.

Burning to media is just too time consuming given the rather small-ish capacities. I've not yet used blu-ray, so that may change my outlook on the matter.

[markyf]

http://www.dvshop.ca/drives/images/hd_2bignetwork_1.jpg

Why don't you use a Lacie drive like this? A 500gb replacement drive is $149 but maybe you could get them significantly cheaper if you bought in bulk. Just a thought?

[David Saraceno]

Long term high volume data storage that doesn't require access is basically tape these days.

We use bare SATA drives with a removable SATA drive enclosure (dual), and store in static bags or carriers.

Fast and works well

[mcgeedigital]

Hard drives are not a legitimate LONG TERM backup solution.

I spoke about this in depth in my 2008 NAB P2 workflow seminar at Post Production World.

I asked everyone in the audience who was shooting P2 or SxS to raise their hands if they "backed up" on hard drives. About 95% raised their hands.

I told them to leave their hands up and then, anyone who HADN'T had data loss to har drive failure to lower their hands.

No one did. I asked if anyone saw a dichotomy with those two facts.

Right now with current technology, DLT, SDLT, and LTO are the only reliable methods of long term archiving I would rely on for paying clients.

Its what your bank records are backed up on.

IF you "back up" your data on hard drives, please do yourself a favor and get an assistant or intern to regularly write and read data to every sector of the drive using a disk utility.

If you don't, then one day you may find that your data is no longer there.

[Jay Rodriguez]

mcgeedigital, care to elaborate on what DLT, SDLT, and LTO is?

EDIT: Just did some googling, the recorders are pretty expensive but seem like the right way of doing things.

[Barry_Green]

I have been using a LTO 1 drive I got off ebay for £100 using windows backup.
Right idea, wrong technology. Try LTO3 or LTO4, it'll cut your time down to maybe an hour or so.

[David Saraceno]

Twenty seven months of HDD backup.

Haven't lost anything. I know there are risks.

[mcgeedigital]

To each their own. You have to weigh the costs with both the benefits and risks.

If it works for you and your work flow then that is all that matters.

[sarah staar]

i think i will change from LTO 1 to LTO 3. However what backup software is the best to use for LTO 3 ??? I can't find anything that will run on XP. They all seem to run on win 2003 server and cost upwards of £500 just for the software!!

Windows XP pro has a backup program that i use for LTO 1 but is a really bad bit of software. It can’t even tell you how much space is left on a tape or what is on a tape !!!

What backup software are broadcasters or production companies using for LTO.
There must be an industry standard.

[sarah staar]

Someone needs bring out an LTO Video backup program that editors can use to back up projects and video footage.

It would be very useful if it had a CMS so clips could be easily found.

[manglerBMX]

is there a mac workflow to lto3 or 4? i'd love to go with that but i haven't found a workflow for it.

[warwickt]

As per Barry. Review Ultrium LTO4 tape drives (Quantum, IBM, TAndberg, HP etc). THe interfaces are SAS, FC and SCSI. I have a quantum ULTRIUM4 LTO4 tape drive desktop model SAS interface. CArd is an ATTO EXRESSSAS R380 (any will do).

Quantum Ultrium4 LTO TApe drive is $USD2600+ from http://www.digitape.com - they sell outside usa.

Software is TOLISGROUP BRU LE - soon to be replaced with BRU PE when available. (http://www.tolisgroup.com)

Ultrium4 get you abut 92MB/sec from SAS interface. Constricted a little by the source or target DISK file system. Best to read and write from disk array with large blocksizes.

TApe cartridges run from $USd65-$usd80 depending where you get them. capacity is 800GB uncompressed. SO that's 800mins of DVCPROHD 1080 I suspect.

For a small business MAM, check out CATDV. The guys at UBC2008 said they have an interface to TOLISGROUP BRU.. looking at this now.
HTH
w

[warwickt]

is there a mac workflow to lto3 or 4? i'd love to go with that but i haven't found a workflow for it.

P2 archives using ULTRUM LTO4 --

There are several OSX based workflows around. For the single or small usr, look at TOLISGROUP's BRU LE (soon for BRU PE (Producers Edition). http://www.tolisgroup.com

This is all OSX based. (suggest to forget retrospect and others.. these seem to have lost their way over the last 10 years).

NO need for external server. TAPE drives connected directly to OSX host via SAS, FC or SCSI and for ULTRIUM 3 tape drives from QUANTUM can be over ETHERNET (not my favourite). BRU LE/PE is priced well and works first time on a single MACPRO. i beleive there are some PCI-X-SAS cards around so in that case maybe also working for the MACBOOKPRO. I dunno.

Select OSX HBA's carefully - ATTO and LSI are a good start. FC Ultrium tap drives will connect on HBAs over FC. I use the SAS interface model (desktop).

Also as per previous post, look at a MAM system that is OSX based call CATDV (http://www.squarebox.co.uk/). It was demo'ed at IBC2008 this past week. THe cost is £157 (pounds).

hth
w

[sarah staar]

i use win xp pro. Can you get lto backup software for win xp

[Jarek Zabczynski]

I back up to twin bare sata drives. Then stored at separate locations.

[warwickt]

is there a mac workflow to lto3 or 4? i'd love to go with that but i haven't found a workflow for it.

lots and lots of detail here for MACPRO + ULTRIUM LTO4 SAS tape drives + HBA that work on  MACOSX with data TAPE + OSX Software (Archive.app) that works on MACPRO natively including several other links to other forums where this detail is. -

refer http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=114778&page=2

and all the links there includes details of working configs that work immediately.

hth
w

[flaminio]

I just put in an order for more FW800 drives from Otherworld. Basically I back everything up in pairs. Unless something physically happens to the drives, the odds of two failures seems quite remote. Two 1.5T drives work out to $0.37 per GB, which seems reasonable. In total, I'll have 7 TB of external storage, plus 3 TB internal. This should keep me working for the time being.

Next year I'll probably look into a LTO4 drive + SCSI card. 800 GB capacity and ~800 GB/hr works for me. It's just a pricey unit.

Another option is I'm getting a Sony PDW-U1 drive to ingest XDCAM, but even if I buy the 50 GB disks, that's too small to be worth the effort, plus they're pretty expensive and probably won't come down much. Bluray is another option, but same story except media will likely come down in price.

The way I figure, is I can use my HDD solution for current and recent projects, and also a staging area for backup/archive. Maybe once a quarter do the chore of transferring to tape and clearing out drives.

[warwickt]

I need long term backup. I do not need to access the footage.

in that case you really want to examin the economies of ULTRIUM LTO data tape. There's tonnes of posts on this in eth REDUSER.NET forums.

Some posted in these forums.

THE TCO of a small ULTRIUM LTO4 system (or cheaper and less fat and fast is LTO3 ULTRIUM) =
HP ULTRIUM SAS LTO4 desktop tape drive $USD2700 (inital cost. ULTRIUM3 is cheaper but may need to do SCSI not SAS. THIS config on OSX MACPRO WORK EXTREMELY WELL!>
ATTOTECH EXPRESSSAS H380 (host buss adapater only) - $USd100's ??
Archive / backup sofwtare for MAC OSX .app single user = TOLISGROUPS BRUPE/LE .. a couple of $$usd100's depending where u get it and from whom.
several ULTRIUM LTO4 tape media (800GBnative) around $USd49 or less in ots of 10's. (much chepaer for LTO3 media but you get 50% of LTO4 Ultrium).. cant see the value myself of using only LTO3 ultrium.


Simply once you have set up this initial cost, you can expand this archive into 100's of TERRABYTEs over a long time without buying anymore el cheapo disk.

I doubt there is a very good cost efective argument for long tie archive these days. Cheap SATA disk are not the long term answer (whether in FW, SATA or USB enclosures).

Good DDms are SAS or SCSI and these cost heaps more that the same capacity DDms in SATAII interfaces.

IMO: Look at the recent issues in the press about the 1,5TB Seagate BArra's .. its getting much harder to get a 2TB disk wi the sam efoot print and price as its recent 1TB SATA2 disk.. BArras had one of teh best names for DDms...

IT is well know that DISKs should stay spinning and that his constant spinning generates the HEAT that is a stable tempreature. When powering a disk down , it obviously cools a bit , some shrinkage (yep! for sure) and then powering it up agan like this will help if fail. So as an archive media for LONG TERM they are rather unreliable as my experince has been over many years - expecially with someway irreplaceble compositions and footage. (where I lost it over two events witth two Le CIE FW 1TB elcheapo disk).

As someposts in this and other forums, people have enjoyed sucess with DISK arhives. I'd say they have been foryunate. I'd like to see what happens in 5 years whenthey want that contet back again.

Even using some DVD;s I first used for archive in my old 2001 TI MAC POWERBOOK cant be read at all on this MACPRO.. beats me..


look at DATA TAPE for LONG TERM until somethng else comes aong.

FWIW
w