Re: Long Term Storage Solutions for Red Camera

I don't backup Red files, but we Back up all of our tapeless (p2) and original created media with a Cache-A LTO4 drive. LTO4 is 800GBs native (1.6TB compressed). You can't really count on the compression though (or calculate it) so just going with the native size is best. The interface is via a browser as the Cache-A has it's own web server built in. It's very easy and done all over IP if you wish. you can also transfer files to the unit over afp or smb (essentially like a network drive). What's nice about the Cache-A is that it has a searchable database for when you need something off the shelf. Whatever you have archived in the unit, it will be on the database, even when the tape is across the room or across the street.

Is it the most wicked fast thing in the world? No, but it does transfer at about fw800 speed. IT's ironic to archive all of our tapeless media back on to tape, but at least the time has shifted away from capturing and on to archiving. Archiving can happen in the background without taking up time on any other production machine.

Cost of entry can be significant, but the tapes themselves are <$40 so once the unit is purchased, the media is cheap. What's nice about LTO is that two revisions are built in to the spec, so your LTO4 tapes will work in an LTO6 machine whenever that time comes.