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Tableau TD1

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(@thepm)
Posts: 253
Reputable Member
Topic starter
 

Did anyone get the chance to use the Tableau TD1 duplicator for an extended period of time ? What's your feedback?

I had the chance to use it for an hour or so during Techno Security last week and it seemed to work great but those demos are sometimes rigged…

Thanks

 
Posted : 09/06/2009 12:02 am
(@Anonymous)
Posts: 0
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The TD1 demo was running fairly continuously, from what I could see, using WD VelociRaptor drives. The display usually indicated 5.6GB/min.

Their session/presentation gave valuable insight as to *why* stated transfer rates of write-blockers are so squirrely. The main reason being that drives spin at a constant rate. Bit density of the media is also constant, but the amount of readable data is less per revolution towards the center of the drive platter versus that read from the outer edge of the drive platter.

Nice to know, eh?

I had previously attributed the decreased performance to "heat issues."

oops

 
Posted : 09/06/2009 7:42 am
(@patrick4n6)
Posts: 650
Honorable Member
 

That's pretty impressive throughput. I was watching the numbers whilst wiping a 500GB Seagate 7200.12 today with a non-tuned linux kernel and was at 96MB/s at the end, which is just marginally better than 5.6GB/m. Of course, my wiping PC is pretty old now. I'd expect a Velociraptor drive could be pushed a bit faster than the number you reported, but clearly the processing bottle neck is small.

Did you happen to see if it was running in duplication mode or file mode? I'll bet not file mode because filesystem overhead would have slowed that rate a bit.

Still, sounds pretty good.

BTW, ZBR (zone bit recording) is taught in the IACIS CFCE. I learned about it back in the 90s when I was working tech support. That's why the average transfer rates are always what interest me, and not these "speeds of up to" claims that they always make.

 
Posted : 09/06/2009 9:56 am
(@thepm)
Posts: 253
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Topic starter
 

During the demo at Techno Security we were using Disk-To-File Mode and I saw speeds up to 5.6GB on a Seagate 500 GB 7200RPM.

 
Posted : 09/06/2009 5:27 pm
(@Anonymous)
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Did you happen to see if it was running in duplication mode or file mode? I'll bet not file mode because filesystem overhead would have slowed that rate a bit.

…the average transfer rates are always what interest me, and not these "speeds of up to" claims that they always make.

As you surmised, Tableau was running in "dup" mode. And, like you, I'm always skeptical of any vendor's claims of 'with our product it is possible to achieve (outstanding performance metric)….' Right… under an ideal set of conditions in a controlled setting.

Still, I *was* going to purchase a competitor's product, but was impressed so much by the Tableau TD1 that I put it on the top of my shopping list.

 
Posted : 09/06/2009 8:30 pm
(@kovar)
Posts: 805
Prominent Member
 

Greetings,

I have a new Logicube Dossier under review that acheives similar speeds. It will also do 1->1, 1->2, and even 2->2 - ie, two different drives to two destination drives at the same time. Very sweet.

-David

 
Posted : 09/06/2009 10:22 pm
(@Anonymous)
Posts: 0
Guest
 

Greetings,

I have a new Logicube Dossier under review that acheives similar speeds. It will also do 1->1, 1->2, and even 2->2 - ie, two different drives to two destination drives at the same time. Very sweet.

-David

I'll hold off purchase until I read your review, David!

8)

 
Posted : 10/06/2009 2:33 am
 96hz
(@96hz)
Posts: 143
Estimable Member
 

I've used a TD1 a few times, I think the theoretical speed might be up to 7GB/Min, in practice I've seen speeds closer to 4.5, which is still pretty fast. Definitely a weapon of choice for field imaging. A few IO errors when I first used it but I think recent firmware updates have put those to bed.

 
Posted : 11/06/2009 1:25 am
(@reverse)
Posts: 10
Active Member
 

I'm interested in hearing more about the dossier - what does it retail for?

I have some Hardcopy III's that image very fast and does so to two target drives at once. The highest I've hit so far has been 5.7GB/min disk->image. target drives were seagate 1TB harddrives formatted NTFS.

 
Posted : 12/06/2009 9:20 am
(@ddewildt)
Posts: 123
Estimable Member
 

I'm interested in hearing more about the dossier - what does it retail for?

I have some Hardcopy III's that image very fast and does so to two target drives at once. The highest I've hit so far has been 5.7GB/min disk->image. target drives were seagate 1TB harddrives formatted NTFS.

In a previous jobs we purchased two dossiers just as they came on to the market. There are two versions of the kit - one with a thermal printer and a whole bunch of specialised adapters, and then one without the printer and adapters. From memory the full kit was about AUD$6k and the smaller one was about AUD$4k.

In terms of speed what I experienced was that it really depended on the drives you use. SATA to SATA went at UDMA-6 so was quicker than say IDE to IDE. For SATA to SATA it averaged out at about 3gb-3.5gb a minute and to be completely honest was no quicker than using a Tableau T35es connected through eSata.

I think the real strength of the Dossier is that you can acquire two drives at once. I guess my only wish would be if you could start those two drives at separate times. What I mean by that is if you are at a scene you would go photograph, document etc on one machine, then start imaging it, and then go do the next machine and start imaging while the first one was going. But with the Dossier you have to start both acquisitions at the same time otherwise you have to wait for whatever the dossier is doing to finish. Its a small thing really and just one of those 'nice to have' wishes.

In theory you can also acquire two RAIDed disks, although we never tested this..

My only other pet peeve with the Dossier (and the Talon which I use at my current job) is that the default setting is for duplication, not for the DD Image. Why would you make a forensic device and have the default setting as duplication?!?!

 
Posted : 13/06/2009 4:53 pm
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