It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the A-Series LTO drives started by Quantum, and now licensed and sold by Cache-A. This review covers the newly released Prime-Cache from Cache-A. There are two other higher end models that offer more internal hard drive space and the option of multiple LTO drives, but for most small to medium size post houses the Prime-Cache model will do just fine, and it’s the least expensive.

This review is more of an overview of some of the functions, and does not cover every feature, option or workflow, and only gives a general overview on setup. My goal is to give you a good taste of what it can do for you and your post house and leave you with an idea of the kind of value it can offer your company, both in security as well as a new revenue stream.

If you have not already done so, you may want to give my last post a quick review, as it gives a history of how we ended up here after having lots of issues with our shelved HD backup system. I know that many people use hard drives for long term archival, and it’s understandable why. It’s cheap and space is plentiful. However, learn from our mistakes and be aware of the pitfalls of going that route.

There’s also a post by Scott Roberts that covers the workflow of the A-Series drives in his own special style.

Location of Device and Setup

When picking a location for the drive, you might be tempted to place it inside your edit bay. It’s a good looking box, small and sits on the desktop nicely. For testing purposes this is what I did, just because I knew I would want more interactivity with the device while reviewing it. But while the device is virtually silent when powered on, once the tape in the drive starts to shuttle during operation it makes more noise then you, or more likely your clients, will want while editing. It’s not terrible, but considering this device is controlled over the network from anywhere in your office, it makes sense to put it somewhere else. For us that was the machine room where we keep the multiple raid drives that sound like an airplane taking off.

Setup could not be easier. It’s pretty close to a zero configuration unit. You plug the unit into a power source, add a Gigabit Ethernet connection and power it on.

By default the unit will start up in DHCP mode which should work with most networks. If you want to assign a static IP (like we eventually did) you can easily do so through the web interface to the device.

At this point a quick check of the manual will tell you how to log in using the default user name and password and a web browser. Safari and Firefox are supported, but Windows Internet Explore is not due to some incompatibilities. This is what the default screen looks like.

While the Quantum drive relied on the web interface for almost everything, that’s no longer the case. You can actually perform your archive duties without having to visit here at all. I will cover this later when I discuss workflow.

One of the great things about this device is that through the web interface, Cache-A can send your unit software updates as they’re released. This makes upgrades pretty painless. While this is pretty much expected for Macs and PC’s these days, dedicated appliances like this don’t usually make upgrades so painless. We went through several small upgrades during beta testing and it was seamless. They would tell us a new version was out, and we would use the web interface to initiate the download. It would automatically download the software, install it and then reboot the computer.

The Hardware
The hardware is a combination of LTO-4 tape drive, internal hard drive, FTP server and computer all wrapped in one. It’s basically a archive appliance built around a PC running Linux. If you’re a linux nerd it’s Fedora Core10, specifically 2.6.27.5-117.fc10. While it is possible to hook up a monitor and keyboard and use the device directly, as you would any other PC, the real strength in this device is that it’s designed to be used over a network with multiple clients at the same time. You don’t need to be anywhere near the box (Except for tape exchanges obviously. I’m told they’re working on a way to change tapes via mind control but that’s probably a 2.0 software feature).

The case itself is relatively small, measuring just 11″H x 10.25″D x 4.5″W,  and it’s designed to sit on a tabletop. It’s all in black except for the Cache-A logo and power button on the front. While it’s designed to run upright to save on desk space, you can also use it horizontally, as long as the drive is right side up (the door will flip up if it is). This works well if you would prefer a rack or shelf for the unit.

On the front is access to the LTO-4 drive, a dual USB port for connecting a memory stick or external storage device and a big power button that glows blue when the unit is on. There are also a few activity lights that monitor the tape drive and hard drive usage. The LTO-4 drive will only write to LTO-4 tapes, but it is backward compatible and will read LTO-3 tapes from the Quantum A-Series drives.

TECH NOTE: This backwards compatibility is not part of the current software release but it expected in a future release. Hopefully a near future release. So if you have one of the Quantum A-Series drives, don’t let go of it just yet or you will not be able to read any of your old tapes.

The back is where you really get the idea that this is a PC. You’ll find all of the standard inputs and outputs, and a network status light that verifies it’s connected.

The appliance is designed to run over Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Bt), and at least in my tests I couldn’t get it to show up on the network even at 100BT. This shouldn’t be an issue for most post houses since you probably already have a fast network. And truthfully, if you’re going to use this device you really need a Gigabit connection.

The Workflow
In the previous version of the A-Series drives that Quantum came out with, the web interface to the unit was where you did nearly everything. Cache-A has taken a different approach. The Prime Cache creates a volume (they call this the vtape) that can be mounted directly on the desktop of the Mac, Windows or Linux. In fact on the Mac desktop you can see both the Mac share as well as the Windows Share.

So here is a simple example of how you might archive your projects.

Organize your projects/files that you want to archive on your hard drive. In our case, we have a “Projects to Archive” folder that each editor uses once he/she determines that a project is ready to be taken off line. Each project is prepped for archival by making sure there is not only a master export of the final video, but we also media manage the final sequence into a folder called “media”. This way when we come back for revisions we at least have an editable sequence that’s easy to modify.

We then create a dated folder in the form of YEAR-MONTHDAY. For example, September 21st 2009 would be represented as 2009-0921. If there is more then one folder for that same day, we just append a letter at the end – 2009-0921a.

We then organize the jobs into the folder in a way that gets each folder as close to 800 gigs without going over (yes, just like the price is right).

With each folder at around 800 gigs or less, it’s time to move some bits. There are two options here. Before we move on let me explain more about the vtape that i mentioned earlier.

The main purpose of the vtape is to be an intermediate between you and the tape drive. As the name implies (Linear Tape Open) the tape records in a linear manner. That means that unlike using a hard drive that reads and writes randomly as needed, a LTO tape is recorded from the start to the end. You can’t go back and remove a file or folder and then reclaim that space.

So help comes via the vtape.

The vtape is the name of the internal drive on the Prime Cache. It allows you to copy files from your computer to the Prime Cache and organize them however you like, and then copy them to the tape in one shot. You can even have the vtape mounted on multiple computers and have them all copying files to the vtape at the same time. This is how the device allows for multiple users simultaneously.

In our example we have chosen to do this organization locally prior to copying the files over, just because we prefer doing it that way and that’s been our work flow since getting the first A-Series drive (which had no vtape).

So back to our example…

Over your local network, mount the shared drive. If you’re on a Mac it’s under your network browser, and on Windows it’s under your Network Neighborhood. (Forgive me for not having tested this with a Windows machine, but I would have had to buy a PC to do that. I wasn’t willing to go that far for the review.)

The device shows up with the name “Archive” followed by a number. The number is the last 2 digits of your serial number. So in my case, the drive comes up as “Archive04″. You will need to type in the default user name and password as outlined in the manual (you can change this) and then you will see the volume called “vtape”. Double click to mount this to mount the hard drive on your desktop.

Here you will see two things. A file called “Eject” and a folder that represents the tape you inserted. By default, it’s a serial number that matches the tape itself. But this is easily changed to something more useful. (The serial number as a default is actually VERY useful if you have a high end system with a automatic barcode reader. It allows the drive to find tapes for you based on the barcode/tape name).

In the finder, just click on the name of the tape (the folder) and name it to whatever you like, keeping in mind good naming conventions. You wouldn’t want to call it…

“My-Really_AwesomeProject!!!!&Other%stuff***that’sImPOR$$tant”.

If you keep your names to alpha/numeric you’ll be fine.

Changing this to a more intuitive name now will help later when we get to catalog it. Once you change the name, you will hear the tape drive shuttle the tape as it changes the name on the tape itself.

As a side note, the Eject file will allow you to eject the tape  but in a somewhat confusing way. What you do is drag the file (named Eject) to the trash (you do not need to empty the trash) and the following dialog appears.

As you scan see, the dialog is a bit confusing. But if you do hit the “Delete” button, it does not erase the tape or delete anything, but in fact just ejects the tape. If this freaks you out and threatens to raise your blood pressure, just use the manual eject button on the face of the device itself. I would imagine this is a fix at some point.

With the tape inserted and renamed (you could have also renamed it after you copied files to it) you are ready to copy files over. You can copy files to the vtape itself for further organization, or to combine them with files from another machine.  Or, you can drag them directly to the tape.

If you drag them to the vtape, they are copied to the internal drive of the Prime-Cache, but not to the tape. This becomes a staging area as I mentioned. When you’re ready you can drag your vtape files directly onto the tape icon and the files will transfer. Another benefit to using this method is that you can make multiple copies of the same tape. Once one tape is done, you put a new one in and drag the files over again. In doing this you can have one on-site and one off-site copy of your data.

In our example I decided to just drag my flies directly to the tape icon, thus I went directly to the tape and bypassed the vtape drive. Well, that’s not totally true. The device still uses the drive to cache files and make sure there is always a steady stream of data for the LTO as it’s recording. But this is more of a rotating cache that once it’s done will not occupy any space on the vtape.

In our example I copied 5 gigs of files directly to the tape, in about 5 minutes. Not too shabby for coping files over a network. And remember, this tape holds 160x more data!

Remember those old Avid drives that were about 50lbs a piece and held only 9 gigs of data and cost $5,000 each!? Now you can fit 800 gigs on a tape that’s roughly the size of a wallet (albeit a fat wallet).

On the vtape you will now see a text file called TransferLog. This file has a list of every file transferred as well as a final status. This is the most important part of the log, found at the end. It confirms that your transfer was successful. If it was not, it will give you details as to what files were the problem and in most cases what the problem seemed to be.

Your file transfer can be monitored more actively through the web interface to the Prime-Cache drive. The list at the bottom will scroll as files are copied.

Now that the tape is completed, the next step is to create a catalog of what’s on it. By doing so you will have the option of later searching for files that you may want to retrieve without having the tape loaded. Once you find what you want, you just insert the proper tape and copy it back to your computer. While the Prime Cache does keep a catalog file of it’s own so that you can do this same function internally, I prefer to keep that information under my own control and accessible even if the drive is off-line. There’s also the added benefit of getting a lot more then a file list in your catalog, as you’ll see next. Other metadata is key.

For this part we use a program called CDFinder. Don’t let the name throw you, it’s not for just CD’s, it’s for any mountable disk, volume or folder – attached locally or over the network. We started using this when we backed everything up to hard drives and it has always served us well. We keep the CDFinder catalog file network accessible, so no matter where the program is launched it’s reading and writing to the same file.

This is the easy part. With your vtape mounted and the tape that you just copied to visible, you can either drag and drop the tape to the CDFinder icon, or from within the program select the tape directly.

During the catalog process, you have options as to how deep to catalog, what file types to skip, the ability to create thumbnail previews of images and so on. By default we scan everything and create thumbnails of images.

This 5 gig backup only took 2-3 minutes to catalog, and that includes making all of the thumbnail images. If you turn off some of those options it goes even faster.

Here is what you end up with when you’re done.

The new catalog, by default, will assume the name of the tape. This is where having your own naming convention is important. You are able to change the name though if needed.

Here you can see some of the icons that were created. These are actually part of the catalog file, and not being read form the tape itself. In fact, when this screen shot was taken the tape was no longer in the drive. It’s one of the advantages of using CDFinder over the Prime Cache internal Catalog.

You also have the ability to sort your catalogs into different folders. As shown here we have a few different client folders, as well as folders for our current tape library and our older hard drive library.

Now with the catalog complete, you can put your tape on the shelf and start your own archive library. Make sure to properly name the tape to reflect the same name that it had in the finder.

Performance

So for me there are two big questions in regards to performance. By far the first one is can I rely on The Prime-Cache to safely protect my data. The second question is, how long does it take to fill an 800 gig tape.

For the first question I can tell you based on my own experience that it’s virtually fail-safe. Not only is the LTO standard very robust with a 30 year shelf life, but it has a great track record and really strong road-map for the future. I also appreciate the fact that the standard is “open”, and not owned by any single company.

As to the second question, in our experience it takes roughly a minute per gig during backup. The number of files and sizes do make a difference. A single file that’s 1 gig in size will transfer a lot faster then 100 smaller files that total 1 gig in size. To fill a tape it usually takes anywhere from 6-9 hours. Obviously the speed of your machine, hard drive system and network will also play into this. We’re pretty fast on all 3 of those so I’m guessing we’re close to best case scenario.

The Prime Cache hardware/software is very solid as well. Even going back to when Quantum was making the device, the engineering team has always been very open to feedback and have worked hard to make changes that users have requested. This really shows in the maturity of this product. While it is a first release from Cache-A, they learned a lot from the early problems that Quantum had and avoided the same pitfalls. The code for the Cache-A device is rewritten from the ground up and only uses the Quantum code necessary to read the LTO-3 tapes. Cache-A has really taken this product from being some weekend hobby at Quantum to making it their flagship product, front and center.

Cost of Ownership
This is not a cheap device, but it’s also not a “dumb” LTO drive. With a standard LTO you have to not only buy the drive but also have a compute host and software to manage your backups. With the Cache-A line of archive appliances, you get all of this in a single box and more. There’s also something very nice about not having to call different companies if you have a problem, and then have them each point to the other. Cache-A makes the hardware and software, and supports it well.

One of the best reasons to choose this device is that it’s available to every computer on your network. With just a LTO drive, you may find yourself moving it from machine to machine as you need to do backups, and it because it’s such a pain you’re less likely to stay current maintaining your archive library.

So all things considered, the $7,999 price tag is not so bad for what you get. Especially if you factor in piece of mind.

Tape prices are really cheap. A 800 gig tape is going for $49.29 at Amazon.com. While that’s only slightly cheaper then a 1TB hard drive, what you’re really paying for is long-term peace of mind. You won’t get that from your dusty hard drives much past 5 years.

But even with the cost involved, the drive could be a money maker for you. How?

We have managed to turn this into a new stream of revenue. Since purchasing the drive nearly 2 years ago we’ve been charging for every project backed up. The result is over time the drive is slowly being paid for, and in about 6-12 more months it will be making us a profit. So it’s safe to say that buying this device has tuned out to be a good investment, that’s about to start paying dividends.

But it’s no longer just editing projects that need to get backed up. Now it’s P2 media, XDCam and RED footage as well. Once the project is over we also offer to create a library tape of all of the original footage. In some cases we will make more then one copy so that not only will our client have the footage, but their client as well.

Before buying any piece of gear for my business I always ask myself if it will be considered overhead, or money generating. The Cache-A Archive Appliance can definitely make you money. If it’s not, you might be leaving money on the table.

The Manual
The 75 page PDF manual is very detailed and easy to read. It does a good job of explaining how the device works, what a typical work flow might be, explaining what the vtape is in detail, use of the web interface and so on. I found that while it wasn’t exactly a page turner, I did enjoy reading it. But then again, I’m a bit of a manual geek. There’s just something about a new manual that makes me excited. I know, very sad. So I’ve been told.

One of the interesting features that I did not cover is the ability to hook up external devices (think USB hard drives or memory sticks) and also backup those devices through the web interface. I played around with it a bit, but did not use it enough to include in this review.

Changes Still Needed
As much as I like this device, it’s not perfect. But the small issues I have with it can be fixed over time with software upgrades. I have to admit it took me pouring through my review notes to even come up with these.

In the web interface there is a button called “Item”. Intuitively it’s hard to know what it’s for exactly. It’s actually a contextual menu based on whatever is selected to the right of it (Current Tape, VTAPE, or Catalog). But it doesn’t make immediate sense and I’m sure there’s a better way to do this, or at least a better name for it.

In that contextual menu, two of the options are Eject and Erase. But does Eject need to be right next to Erase? This just seems like a bad idea.

Erasing the vtape can take an unusually long time. You can erase it in the finder or through the web interface, but in both cases it just takes a long time (in one case it was several hours for just under 800 gigs of files). If you choose to perform this function in the web browser, there’s no way to tell if/when it’s done since there is no status. You just assume that it’s running in the background.

To be fair, I have not tested this since the last software upgrade so it’s possible that it’s better now. I know they were aware of it and working on it.

By default the system ships with a DHCP network setup, meaning you should be able to just plug it in and let it find an open space on the network. They recommend that you leave it in this mode, but we found it was better to just give it a hard IP address. There were a few times that it picked a IP address that was already in use, thus causing a network conflict. I can not say for sure that it was the fault of the Prime-Cache, only that we’ve never had this issue before. Using the web interface we easily give it a static number and all was fine after that. Generally speaking, anything that can be thought of as a “server” is something I like to have on a locked down IP anyway.

My biggest complaint is that the backwards support for LTO-3 (reading previous archive tapes) is not yet implemented in the software (thus untested). For anybody that already has a history with the device this makes upgrading pointless until this is corrected. We have nearly 100 tapes that will not work with the new drive, which means we can’t let go of our current drive until this feature is implemented. They hope to get it out before the end of this year, but there’s no guarantee. If you’re totally new to this device, then you won’t really care about this feature.

And as I already mentioned, the eject dialog is a bit confusing. Having the word “Delete” appear does grab your attention, but since the dialog presents a conflicting message it’s a bit unnerving, even if it is harmless. But again, an easy fix that I would expect to see in a future release.

The SuiteTake
At the risk of repeating myself yet again, you can not underestimate the importance of a solid reliable archive. If it’s important enough to save, it’s important enough to do it right. Especially if you’re thinking about billing your clients for this service. For all the years that we did HD backups we never charged clients for one main reason. I didn’t want the responsibility of dealing with files that were lost due to a drive failure. So we did it as a courtesy and guaranteed nothing.

New features are due to be added in October with their 1.1 software release. Some of the major features include Tape Spanning, Automatic VTAPE file removal option, Pro-Cache RAID 0/1, and Pro-Cache ExpressCard Support.

With the Cache-A series of Archive Appliances based on the LTO standard, you can reliably backup all of your files and know that they’re safe. Period. And with the new devices from Cache-A your data can be read back from a Standard LTO-4 drive as well, so you’re not locked into the A-Series drives for retrieval.

To those that know me it will come as no surprise that I’m a backup nerd. Since owning my first DAT drive in the mid 90’s that held a grand total of 2 gigs per tape (compressed) I’ve been interested in backup technology, redundancy and “playing it safe” when it comes to my data. That trend has been extended to my business for the benefit of my company as well as my clients.

This post will discuss a new backup appliance being introduced at NAB this year, and cover in general terms how we currently use its predecessor in our workflow. Even if you have your own method of archiving and don’t need anything at this time, you might want to read about our process toward the end of the post to see if you can benefit from it at all.

A Brief History – The Wrong Way
From 2002-2007 we used a hard drive backup system at our office that was working OK, but was starting to show signs of fatigue. With about 45 drives on the shelf (300-400 gigs each), some of the drives were 5 years old now and on occasion we would have problems retrieving files on some of the older drives.

There has been plenty written about the expected life of hard drives, the need to exercise them and the amount of time they will last on a shelf without regular use. No matter which side you’re on or what your personal belief is, I can tell you from first hand experience that we were losing data and I was getting very concerned. What use is a backup system that slowly loses its files over such a short period of time.

Back in April 2007 I went to NAB in part to find a new backup strategy (and in part to just relax in the hotel spa). After looking at plenty of solutions and talking to plenty of vendors, I came across the LTO A-Series drives from Quantum. It had some really great features that nobody else offered at the time, and was targeted to post production professionals. Some of the features include…

• Built on the LTO-3 standard, you could fit 400 gigs of storage per tape (tapes were about $50 each at the time, and even cheaper now).
• It was network accessible over Gigabit Ethernet. If you have multiple edit systems like we do, this is pretty big. You can park the machine anywhere on the network and access it from any local machine. With other solutions you have to move the drive from machine to machine as needed.
• No special software needed – using a standard FTP client or their built in web browser client you could backup and retrieve files with ease. It’s truly platform independent.
• The drive was based on the LTO open standard (there was also a SDLT version if you prefer). The two main benefits of this are that it’s an open standard that was created by Seagate, HP and IBM and the tapes have a 30 year shelf life.
• Each tape has it’s own built-in file system on the tape, so loading the tape directory and locating a file is fast and very responsive. No need to have a separate catalog file that you have to keep track of.

Implementing the A-Series Solution
The drive was not shipping at the time, but would be later that year. I patiently waited and in the fall of 2007 purchased the desktop version of the A-Series and a case of tapes.

This is where I’m supposed to tell you that everything went smoothly and rainbows were flowing out of the tape drive. Well, that was not the case. I’ll spare you the particulars and just say it took us almost 6 months, countless emails to tech support and a major software/firmware update to finally trust the drive with the long term safety of our projects. To their credit, the Quantum support staff and engineers were first rate in the way they responded to each and every problem we had. As annoying as I’m sure we were, they never made us feel we were any trouble even when we sometimes lost our patience.

In early 2008 they released a major software/firmware update that addressed 99.9% of our issues, and since then it has been smooth sailing. We have not had a single issue with archiving or retrieving elements and have found ways to turn the drive into a new revenue stream as well.

The Future is NOW (or at least very soon)
So here we are approaching another NAB, 2 years after my first introduction to the Quantum A-Series drive, and it just got better. I’m so excited and impressed with what’s coming out that I’m considering selling my current A-Series drive and buying the newer model. But, the new drives are not from Quantum. They’re from Cache-A.

Cache-A is a new startup company that has licensed the A-Series technology from Quantum so that they could build on the platform that Quantum created. They have some of the key players that helped create the original drive, and some seriously good people that have really thought through how to improve the new drive. Much of their feature list no doubt comes from feedback from the current customer base.

Here are the highlights of the new drives from Cache-A.

• The new drives are all based on the LTO-4 standard. This is huge, because now each tape can hold 800 gigs, double of the LTO-3 model from Quantum. That brings the price down to about 6¢ per gig. Wow!
• The drive is backwards compatible, and can read any LTO-3 tapes created with the Quantum A-Series drives. This is very smart, because it means upgrading from the previous model is very easy.
• The file system on each tape is now an open standard, which was not true before. This means that you can exchange a tape with anybody who has a standard LTO-4 drive. In the past, you both needed to have a A-Series drive to read the content. This was one of my biggest concerns with this solution originally, and it’s nice to see it has been fixed. No need to be that proprietary.
• The file system supports original metadata from source files, and they’ve made it clear they are adding to this support in the future.

I have requested an evaluation unit once they’re shipping, and if I get my hands on one I’ll do a follow up hands on review of the drive. For the previous review that Scott Roberts did on the Quantum A-Series drive we currently own, check out his post.

Looking a little further down the road, there are plans for the LTO format to progress with LTO-5 and LTO-6. LTO-5 will have a capacity of 1.6 TB per tape, and LTO-6 will hold 3.2 TB per tape. Time will tell if the technology continues down this path, but so far history has proven this format to be very robust and successful.

The Workflow
So how do we use the drive in our post production work flow? Here are the broad strokes.

Deciding What/When To Archive
All editing projects are archived to tape once the project has been complete and unchanged for 3 months or longer. It’s usually flagged for backup right around the 3 month mark by the primary editor on the project after conferring with the client. The backup will include all elements in the job (with the exception of digitized or imported original camera media) as well as a final master QT export of the project in it’s original format. If the client would like to include original camera media, we will do so for an extra charge based on the amount of space they need. This process is quick and easy since all projects use the project folder system I outlined in a previous post.

Once a project is marked for backup (by using colored labels in the Finder) it is moved into a folder called “Archive-Projects”. On the first of every month our assistant editor Scott goes to each edit system, verifies that each project has a master export, and creates backup folders that each contain roughly 400 gigs of files. We’ve found from experience that pre-organizing the folders/files in the finder prior to backup works much better then trying to do it all during the transfer process.

Performing The Backup
At this point it’s a matter of putting a blank tape in the drive and logging into the drive using your standard web browser. Using the client side software through the web browser you start the transfer by a simple drag and drop.

It takes roughly 3 to 3.5 hours to fill a 400 gig tape, but since this can run in the background it’s no problem to continue working on the computer. Once the transfer is complete, you get a confirmation message telling you that everything was successful, or a list of any problems that occurred during the backup process.

Once the projects are all successfully archived (as verified by Scott), he then turns the folders another color, indicating to me that the projects are safely archived and ready to be removed. Where removing projects is concerned, I’m a bit of a control freak and prefer that I’m the only one that deletes project folders and media. If a mistake is ever made and something is deleted by accident, I would rather be mad at myself.

Removing All Project Assets With A Simple Search
For the last part of this process I sit at the edit computer and load all of the media drives in the office (we have 2 raid systems totaling 20 TB of space, but a few years ago we had several G-Raid drives on each system). Using the job number from each job that has been archived, I do a file search for any and all files related to that job number across all drives. By doing this, I am able to not only delete the project folder, but all render files, capture scratch, project archives and so on. Once I have them all in the same window I give them a quick review – and then select them all and delete them. I then move onto the next project and repeat the step.

Keeping It Accessible
You may be wondering how we find files once they’re on the tapes. After all, we have over 25 tapes now and finding a single QT movie would be a nightmare without some sort of system in place. Well that’s the final step.

As each tape is filled, we mount it on the desktop of the computer and use a program called CD Finder to create a catalog file of all contents of the tape. This usually only takes a few minutes per tape. Once complete, the tape is in the CD Finder database and can be searched from any computer in the office without the tape being loaded. Once we find what we’re looking for, we load the appropriate tape and retrieve the files. It has turned out to be a great system.

The Payoff
So in the end, we have all of our important files backed up and safe for the next 30 years, they’re cataloged in a way that allows us to find a file in minutes, sometimes seconds, and we’ve made a small profit along the way by charging for the backup process and tape stock used. What started out as just pure overhead has turned into a income stream.

The SuiteTake
The amount of digital media attached to any single post production project is growing leaps and bounds at an alarming rate. Only a few years back having 1TB of storage per edit system seemed like a bottomless pit, and now we have 10TB per machine and at times are running low on space. The list of files to archive keeps growing, and if your workflow has includes tapeless media you have probably already been pushed to the limit.

One way to stay on top of managing your space is to do regular archives to a safe format that not only frees up drive space for new projects, but gives you peace of mind that all past projects are there when you need them.

As much as everybody wants to move away from tape, I still believe when it comes to reliability, cost per gig and shelf life, there’s still nothing better out there to archive your data. And I have literally put my money and company behind that belief. If you’ve been looking for a long term backup solution, I highly suggest you check out the new line of drives from Cache-A. If you can’t see them at NAB, be sure to check out their website or call them directly for more information. You won’t meet a nicer bunch of guys interested in helping you out.

See For Yourself
As of this writing, prices have not been set yet but I’m hoping they’re in the same area (or cheaper) then what the Quantum drives were selling for, which was about $7K for a single drive unit. If you’re going to NAB, be sure to stop by and visit them at booth SL-9605.