Managing Projects and Media > Archiving > Choosing a Medium for Archiving >
Tape Drives

Using a tape device for archiving purposes allows for fast archiving and restoring. Tape drives are inexpensive and readily available. Tape provides fast and reliable read and write performance. And, contrary to VTR archives, tape archives can be of any bit depth.

However, data archives (tape archives) can only be restored to a Visual Effects and Finishing workstation and are unreadable by other applications. Also, magnetic tape is a delicate media and is greatly affected by environmental conditions that cause its deterioration. The procedure of archiving to a tape device is similar to archiving to file.

Visual Effects and Finishing workstations only support DTF2 fibre channel tape devices connected to ports 1 or 4 of a four-port fibre channel adapter.

NoteWhen archiving with the Sony DTF2, use firmware version 1.41.

Other fibre channel devices that may work are those for which the vendor confirms that:

- The device driver is compliant with standard UNIX tape device calls.
- The specific version of your operating system and kernel is supported.

While Autodesk Media & Entertainment makes no certification statement about any device, the following SCSI devices have been tested and found to be reliable when connected using an ATTO Fibre Channel to SCSI Bridge 2390:

- Quantum LT03
- Quantum DLT8000
- Quantum DLT7000
- Sony AIT3 SDX-D700C
- Sony AIT2

The initialization file (init.cfg) for your Visual Effects and Finishing application contains examples of the ClipMgtDevice Tape keyword to help you set up the appropriate block size value for your tape device and define a text label to identify the device in the Archiving module. Please refer to the documentation from your archiving device vendor for guidelines on the actual block size to use.