Get Archiving with YoYotta

LTFS Archiving

Linear Tape File System is a standard format for writing files to tape. It's ideal for storing production and post media as the LTO tapes can be mounted and read on Linux, macOS and Windows. You aren't locked into a proprietary archive.

YoYotta v4

Add options to YoYotta v4 to control up to eight LTO drives. With multiple tape drives YoYotta can create duplicate LTFS archives in parallel and also run multiple independent archive and restore jobs.

Quickly create industry standard archives on LTO-9, LTO-8, LTO-7, LTO-6 or LTO-5 tapes. YoYotta names, formats, mounts and repairs tape archives. During the archive YoYotta calculates both MD5 and xxHash checksums and then automatically uses these to read back and verify every file.
YoYotta creates index snapshots listing the contents of every tape created so later on you can search the project to find the location of clips and files.

Connecting LTO drives to a Mac

The LTFS standard requires an LTO-5 or newer tape drive. LTO drives have either SAS or Fibre Channel interfaces.

Our advice is to use SAS drives rather than FC, they are cheaper, they use more durable cables, there is no configuration and SAS gives the same performance.
There are also 10GbE ethernet LTO units which have a SAS tape drive inside, avoid these as they are complex, expensive and a dedicated ethernet port will be needed on the Mac.

To connect any make or generation of SAS or FC LTO drive to a Mac use an ATTO PCIe interface.
See this link for more details about ATTO interfaces.
PCIe interface cards go into Thunderbolt expansion units like the Sonnet Echo Express SEL shown here.
A Thunderbolt enclosure holds one or more PCIe cards. Use this to connect to a desktop SAS LTO drive or tape library.

You can also put a PCIe SAS or FC card inside a MacPro. However this is overkill as even an entry level Mac mini connected to a Thunderbolt enclosure will give equal archiving performance.
There are also desktop units from MagStor and Symply that include an internal Thunderbolt to SAS interface so they can plug straight into a Mac.

LTO Tape

LTO-9 tape stores up to 17.4 TB and are a lot faster at 250-300MB/s and 350-400MB/s for full height drives.
LTO-8 tape stores up to 11.3 TB and are a lot faster at 250-300MB/s.
LTO-7 tape stores up to 5.6 TB and are a lot faster at 250-300MB/s.
LTO-6 tape stores up to 2.3 TB and are a little faster at 160MB/s.
LTO-5 tape stores up to 1.25 TB and can be read or written at 140MB/s.
Some space is reserved for LTFS tape indexes.
Unlike hard drives the tapes are designed with a 30 year shelf life.
All tapes must have barcode labels, this identifies the tape and allows use in a library.

Smart Queuing

YoYotta has a smart queue, so multiple copies can be started and they will be processed in order when the destination drive is available.

MagStor LTO

Single or dual LTO drives with a Thunderbolt interface.

Symply LTO

Range of desktop and rack mountable units with single or dual drives. Available with Thunderbolt and SAS interfaces.

HPE LTO

SAS interface

IBM LTO

SAS interface

Overland-Tandberg LTO

LTO drives with a SAS interface

Overland-Tandberg have closed and are no longer providing support for their tape drives and tape libraries.
Support and spare parts including new library drives can be purchased from MagStor.
There is more information here about MagStor's support for Overland Tandberg users

mLogic mTape LTO

LTO drive with a Thunderbolt interface in a compact enclosure. The mTape will connect directly to the Mac.

Qualstar Qi LTO

Compact Desktop LTO drive with a SAS interface.

Quantum Ultrium LTO

SAS or FC interface

YoYotta software runs on Apple macOS 15 Sequoia, 14 Sonoma, 13 Ventura, 12 Monterey, 11 Big Sur and 10.15 Catalina