Archive P2 Data to DV tape?

D

dafilms

Member
I'm looking for a cost effective and reliable way to archive P2 data. I came a cross a program called DV Backup. (http://www.coolatoola.com/FAQ.htm) What it basically does is use DV tape and a DV recorder, connected to you computer via Firewire, as a tape based data storage system, much like DLT.

I have a Sony DSR-45 deck sitting right here, so I'm only looking a the cost of the tape. According to the website a DVCAM 184 tape (276 min. in DV SP mode) would equate to over 50GB of storage.

The questions I have are:

Has anyone used a solution like this one?
And, can you think of any reasons why this would be a bad idea?
 
Bad Idea.

Because it is tape. Tape that can break. Tape that can melt. Tape that can get eaten up by the deck. Tape that will wear out.


Good Idea.

Because it is cheap. Cheap is good. Cheap is cheap. You get what you pay for.
 
You're right. Tape can be fragile and the method can be rather slow, but don't the alternnatives like DLT have these same short comings.

It seems to me that since, as an archive, the tape will not be put to use very often, it should hold up pretty well. (assuming that it's stored properly)

I don't know the time it takes to backup to DLT or other high capacity storage devices, but wouldn't DLT have some of the same vulnerabilities as DV tape?

DVD certianly seems like quite a time consuming process when your limited to 5 or 9GB per session.

What solutions are people using with success?
 
A Sony 180min DVCAM tape from B&H is $32, at 50GB, that's 64c/gig
A basic 500GB external hard-drive from newegg is $110, that's 22c/gig


I know which one I'd choose.

- Mikko
 
Archiving to videotape is a terrible idea. Simply terrible. With all due respect to the folks at coolatoola, this is an awful idea.

Why is it so awful? Because DV has built-in error correction to mask errors, and that error correction is designed around VIDEO information, not data.

If you want to back up your data to tape, back up to a proper data tape system, one that was designed for data.
 
I agree with Barry. I've used the software and it works great but I'm very unsure of it's stability and long term archive use. So ironically, I use DVD-Rs and Dual Layers. (!!!) but also backup to seagate harddrives
 
Also consider the time you are spending.

Think about it. You have adopted the P2 (tapeless) workflow for a good reason, it is fast - it is instant - it is the future - now you are going back to tape?
 
Making a "deep archive" on tape makes a lot of sense for some users, but making any sort of data archive on videotape makes no sense for any users. It's an incredibly slow, inefficient, expensive, and unreliable way to go.

On videotape it'll take five hours to back up one hour of P2 footage, and that footage will cost you 64 cents per gigabyte, and it'll be of questionable reliability because the deck is meant for video data, not data data. And it'll take a full 184-minute tape to store just one hour.

Instead let's look at backing up on DATA tape, using a system that's designed to back up data. On LTO3, it'll take 10 minutes to back up an hour of footage (yes, the LTO3 data tape is going to be approximately 30 TIMES faster than the DV tape method. 30 TIMES faster.) And that footage will cost you 11 cents per gigabyte (yes, the DVCAM tape method will cost you SIX TIMES as much as backing up on data tape). And you can store 7 hours of footage on each tape.

So on the one hand, you have a system that's inherently unreliable, 30 times slower, and costs six times as much per gig, and would take up 7x as many tapes to do the job. Or you could ditch that idea and go with a proper data tape archiving system, get 30x faster performance and slash your tape budget to 1/6th of the DVCAM tape system, and archive/store 1/7th as many tapes. Oh, and it'll work, too -- can't forget that part.

I repeat -- backing up data onto DV tape makes no sense, from any perspective.
 
Blu-Ray burners are becoming very affordable these days. Last time I checked, an LG Blu-ray 4x burner ran about $520 and media runs in the $15 to $35 range for 25 and 50 GB discs. I would even consider this as an archival solution. It's much easier to pop one of these into your drive and read the data or simply copy it back to you system.

It was also mentioned that hard drives are now cheaper than most tape on a dollars per gigabyte scale. My company is using an enternal RAID 1 enclosure along with 500GB drives as a near term archival system. We still rely on tape (DLT) as our long term backup (5 to 15 years), but this solution is less expensive than tape and significantly faster. With 1TB drives on the market and the prices dropping like a rock, this method is becoming more attractive as an archival solution.

Whatever you decide, there are so many options that are better then the solution you have outlined. I hope this was helpful.

Best Regards,

Mark Kauffman
Technical Lead
PB
kauffman@pbworld.com
 
I tested DV Backup ~2 or 3 years ago - it worked, but was SLOOOOOOW due to bandwith of DV...

Better buy a bunch of Harddrives, simply copy it and put the HD on the shelf.

My 2c.

ULI
 
I want to thank everyone for your input. I was looking for a reliable and cost effective solutions and it seems clear from all your responses that DV Backup is not it. I think I'll continue using hard drives for shot term storage and look into BluRay for longer term storage.
 
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