baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) (07/19/90)
I am thinking of getting a tape backup to backup my hard disk on my PC, and
would like to know what kind of experiences that people have had with their
systems. Specifically,
o Which brand of tape backup do you have?
o How long does it take to do a full backup?
o What is the cost?
o How much can you store on a single tape?
o Is any compression used, and if so, how much compression is done?
o Have you verified the integrity of the backup?
o Which software do you use to do the backup?
o Any problems with it?
o Would you recommend the tape backup that you have?
harper@convex.com (David Harper) (07/19/90)
In article <4334@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: >I am thinking of getting a tape backup to backup my hard disk on my PC, and >would like to know what kind of experiences that people have had with their >systems. Specifically, > > o Which brand of tape backup do you have? I use the Mountain Computer floppy based internal tape backup. I have been told that it will work in conjunction with a floppy drive B that is already installed. This requires a special floppy cable that has three connectors on it. (I have a secondary floppy controller installed so I have a dedicated port for the drive). > o How long does it take to do a full backup? Backup speed is about 2 Meg/minute for a locally attached hard drive. I also have two additional computers attached with an ARCNET LAN (using Western Digitals ViaNet O.S.) and backing up those drives over the net drops the speed to around 250K/minute. > o What is the cost? Around $300 depending on the mail order house. > o How much can you store on a single tape? 40 Meg (DC2000). > o Is any compression used, and if so, how much compression is done? No. I don't know if they offer compression on newer versions of the software or not. > o Have you verified the integrity of the backup? Yes, many times - I've never lost any data although I've had my share of disk crashes over the years. I have successfully reloaded data that was written > 4 years ago. > o Which software do you use to do the backup? The drive comes with the backup software. This will allow you to format the tape, do an image or file by file backup/restore, etc. > o Any problems with it? The only problems that I have ever had seem to be the tapes themselves. Every once in a while I will get a box and it seems that every tape in the box has trouble formatting (usually the software aborts after an excessive number of bad sectors). I have never had a vendor give me any problems on exchanging a bad box of tapes. > o Would you recommend the tape backup that you have? Absolutely. Dave Harper - Convex Computer Corp. E-mail address: 3000 Waterview Pky. Richardson, TX 75081 harper@convex.COM (214) 497-4525 (W) (214) 727-4206 (H)
rmf@bpdsun1.uucp (Rob Finley) (07/22/90)
There are essentially two kinds of tape backup. The lesser expensive
is based on the QIC-2000 interface.
QIC2000 summary
Tape: microcassette size, about 2" wide by 1.5" by 0.25"
must be formatted before use (can take an hour per).
Slow transfer rate as it reads one track at a time.
Hardware: both 5.25 and 3.5 form factors available.
Uses standard Floppy disk inteface. Some can take advantage
of the faster data rate of 1.2meg floppy interface.
The second type I feel is based on the QIC-36 interface. QIC36 is more
complicated as electrically, the drive itself rarely has a standard
interface (like SCSI).
QIC36 summary
Tape: "Larger format" four inches deep by six inches wide.
can be used without formatting. 9 tracks are read
at the same time for great speed. Tapes are $20 but
can hold about 600 megs (quite a few save-sets).
Hardware: The less expensive systems have tape drives (no 3.5"
sorry.) with QIC-36 data interface that connects to
a separate (sans SCSI) IBM slot controller
or the SCSI route will complement
an SCSI hard drive if you have room for the non IBM
controller (5.5" by 8"). I have faith that Wangtek
and Irwin have announced drives with internal SCSI support.
The QIC 36's should be a fraction of the cost.
Then there is the new 150 meg format of the QIC36...
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"Lets go kick some Earthling butt!" -- Spaced Invaders
quintro!bpdsun1!rmf@lll-winken.llnl.gov uunet!tiamat!quintro!bpdsun1!rmfdet@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (07/23/90)
In article <4334@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > I am thinking of getting a tape backup to backup my hard disk on my PC, and > would like to know what kind of experiences that people have had with their > systems. Specifically, > > o Which brand of tape backup do you have? wangtek 5150pk > o How long does it take to do a full backup? from 1 to 2 hours > o What is the cost? $350 (used) > o How much can you store on a single tape? 150 megabytes > o Is any compression used, and if so, how much compression is done? No, but i can use the program "compress" to compress the backup before applying it to the tape and get about 30% or more data on the tape. > o Have you verified the integrity of the backup? yes. no problems > o Which software do you use to do the backup? cd /;find . -print|cpio -ocaB > /dev/rmt/c0s0 > o Any problems with it? no. > o Would you recommend the tape backup that you have? yes. -- Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG