We are using LTO here. The tapes are supposed to last a long time and we have only had one become unusable because it was dropped off a high shelf and broke open. I would recommend the kind of LTO that is mountable via FTP or direct access. Right now, we have a LTO-5 setup that uses a proprietary interface. This limits access to whichever station it is on. Our 1st gen of LTO was LTO-3 and we could get to it from any desktop via a ftp client. Although you still had to go put the correct tape in. My biggest challenges with LTO are:

• It's slow. Not to copy once it gets going, but to find which tape I need, find the tape, then wait for it to spin up, etc..
  
• You can't just pop the tape in to see what's on it with our proprietary system. A manager is required to keep track of the contents. 
• Without spending thousands more for a double bay drive, we haven't found an easy way to create duplicate copies of the tapes. What we do now is cumbersome. 

On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 1:36 PM, Teddy Gage <teddygage@gmail.com> wrote:

I hate you.

On Nov 14, 2013 10:30 AM, "Greg Balint" <delrazoraelist@gmail.com> wrote:

Let me know if / when you are interested in Chattanooga. I'll give you some insight to areas that might be good for you.

Fyi, the gigabit pricing is only for residential addresses. I think business addresses are more like $350/month, difference being they think businesses will use more bandwidth. That may have changed with their recent push for everyone having gigabit, though.

///Greg Balint
//Art Director / Motion Graphics Designer
/321.514.4839
delRAZOR.com/
   

On Nov 14, 2013 10:19 AM, "Dann Stubbs" <dann@darkskydigital.com> wrote:

those are fantastic speeds, the only option for fiber here is that same 20-30K install and then a couple thousands a month bill - too much.

i looked at your site for any location info but did not find any so uses whois which is where it showed tx

tx would be fine but we've actually been looking in TN on and off for a few years for something that looked nice - will have to look in that area now too.

thanks for the link, i will keep that one on my radar.

dann

___________________________________________________________________

Dann Stubbs  -  dann@darkskydigital.com

Dark Sky Digital -  http://www.darkskydigital.com

http://www.RenderKing.com  Value Priced C4D, VRAY Render Farm

___________________________________________________________________

On Nov 14, 2013, at 10:09 AM, Greg Balint wrote:

Allen,

I live in Chattanooga,Tennessee. Oddly enough, our power company here ran fiber all across its user area. So anywhere you can get EPB Power service, you can get 1Gb up/down internet.

Had to go buy a new router just to handle the throughput.  it's crazy fast though.. I get about 935Mbps down and 918Mbps up on Speedtest.net

They also do TV and phone, although we only have TV and Internet with them. My TV portion of the bill is actually more expensive than the internet portion.

Here's their site if you want more info.

https://epbfi.com/internet/

The really cool thing.. when we first moved here 2 years ago.. I bought in to the 100Mb package.. they had 30, 100, 350 and 1gb i think..   

The 100Mb was around $115 per month, and I was happy as a clam...  Then the next year they said "Happy birthday to us! anyone with 100Mb now has 200Mb, and anyone with 30 now has 50!"

Everyone was pretty happy with that..
Then this year, they had another birthday announcement.. 

"Ok.. anyone who has 100mbps or higher, at this moment now has our 1Gbps plan... and it'll only be $69.99.."

So along with a SUPER speed increase for free.. they lowered my bill by about 45 dollars per month...

I still can't believe it really.. There's no "cap" to anything, and they have specific terms in their contract that state that they do not monitor your usage or "shape" any traffic, etc.

It's been rock solid for 2+ years without a single down-time, or slow downs at all.. 

To keep this on topic some

Dropbox can upload a 4GB file in around a minute or two.. (across country to California servers)  I get about 35-45MBps uploads to DropBox consistently.. (this connection tops out at about 128MBps, that's MegaBYTES, not MegaBITS) basically before I can even check, my file is already live on their servers and able to share off to a client or colleague.

I've actually gone to a friend's house.. used his gigabit connection to remote connect into my computer and do After Effects work on it as if there's no remote connection at all.. it just ran like I was hooked up to my PC at home.. 

Anyway.. I guess that's the long rant of it..  If anyone has any specific questions about service with them or any other tests they'd like me to do, let me know off-list and I'll get back to you.

///Greg Balint
//Art Director / Motion Graphics Designer
/321.514.4839
delRAZOR.com/
   

On Nov 14, 2013 8:19 AM, "Allen Ellis" <allen.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:

Where do you live Greg? Maybe we'll move ;)

In our building in Orlando we're stuck with an AT&T connection that gives us 900Kbps up, so any significant files simply cannot be sent over the cloud. Installing 15Mbps fiber requires $30k to tear up the sidewalk + $1,200/mo

At my house I get 90/10 for $100/mo. When we have large deliverables due to the client sometimes I take them hone or go to the library which has 100Mb symmetrical. Feels like the dark ages!

We have 9TB online with a ReadyNAS, backed up nightly onsite to an identical device. Anything older than 6 months goes to an external drive sorted by client.

I'm terrified someone will drop a client's drive walking back and forth with one of these cheap externals. All together we have about 30TB stored, and to get a NAS that large (plus a second to mirror it) would cost something like $20-40k. So for now we're just buying externals as needed and holding our breath...