bilbo@pnet02.cts.com (Bill Daggett) (03/26/88)
I have been using a 20 Meg hard drive for various storage for over 6 months.
So far SDBackup is the only PD program I have attempted to get friendly with
to backup the drive. I have MRBackup which is more intuitive but the early
version was reported unreliable so I have never relied on it - it sits on the
pile of ARCed file disks.
Recently I heard of Saf-T-Net and Quarterback commercial hard drive back-up
programs and I looked at them today but couldn't learn much from their covers.
I mean, they both backup hard drives but which one is "best", reliable, fast,
menu driven, feature packed?? Of course I want reliability, compression, and
ease of use (in that order) foremost before "other features" such as
undeleting a file on a hard drive partition. Is such a feat possible yet on
the Amiga?
Maybe you have another favorite? I'd appreciate some discussion of why you
might think or what you might think is better. "Stick with SDBackup" would be
most discouraging.
And thanks very much for your help. You can either post here or to me in
Email - doesn't matter.
Bill
UUCP: {ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax rutgers!marque}!gryphon!pnet02!bilbo
INET: bilbo@pnet02.cts.comfnf@fishpond.UUCP (Fred Fish) (03/27/88)
In article <3001@gryphon.CTS.COM> bilbo@pnet02.cts.com (Bill Daggett) writes: >Recently I heard of Saf-T-Net and Quarterback commercial hard drive back-up >programs and I looked at them today but couldn't learn much from their covers. >I mean, they both backup hard drives but which one is "best", reliable, fast, >menu driven, feature packed?? Of course I want reliability, compression, and >ease of use (in that order) foremost before "other features" such as >undeleting a file on a hard drive partition. Is such a feat possible yet on >the Amiga? Without recommending any backup program in particular (including my own :-), I can suggest a couple tests to try on it before you depend too heavily on any backup program. Note that I have concentrated primarily on features related to recovering your data, as opposed to the convenience or speed of backing it up in the first place. (1) For a multivolume archive, pick any random volume and throw it in the trash. Now see if you can recover all the rest of your data from the remaining volumes. If not, repeat the test, but this time use the disk the backup program came on. :-) This simulates having one of your multivolume archive volumes being accidentally lost, stolen, eaten by your dog, etc. (2) Take your archive and randomly overwrite a few blocks with trash. See if you still recover all the non-trash data, and also, do you know what is trash and what isn't. This simulates having your backup media become unreadable at various random places. Some other features that I consider important, but are not necessarily vital: (1) Does the restore mode support both supercede and no-supercede for existing disk files? I.E., can you tell it not to clobber an existing disk file that is newer, while still replacing any other older or nonexistent files. This capability can be used to merge file trees from several different backups, automatically retaining only the latest copies of any particular file. My preference is that no-supercede be the default. (2) Can you write an archive to a normal disk file, or set of disk files of specified size (say 200Kb each), rather than just a "device". Ditto for serial/parallel port. Ditto for pipe. Ditto for tape drive (yes, they are coming...) (3) What does the backup program do when it encounters a nonrecoverable write error while writing an archive to a given media. Rewriting that volume with another media is not always the correct answer. For example, I will be quite annoyed if I am close to the end of writing an archive to a 100Mb streaming tape and it decides to rewrite the entire volume because it got a write error while trying to write a copy of a trash file I don't care about. (4) Can you tell your backup program to ignore/use/set/reset the archive bit while writing an archive. Ditto for restores. (5) Can your backup program reread an archive at any time to test for readability and integrity of the data. This is important if you send an archive to a third party or get paranoid late one night and decide to check all your backups. (6) Can your backup program compare the contents of an archive to the current disk structure and report on any differences found. This is useful for taking snapshots of your normal system configuration and then checking at any time to see what files, if any, might be missing, changed, etc. (7) Is the backup format general enough and extensible enough so that there is some glimmer of hope that the author might someday be able to support compatible versions on other operating systems. With Unix coming for the Amiga, this is not just a moot question. I could probably continue on for several hundred more lines with additional desirable features, tests, etc, but this ought to be enough to give some food for thought. -Fred -- # Fred Fish hao!noao!mcdsun!fishpond!fnf (602) 921-1113 # Ye Olde Fishpond, 1346 West 10th Place, Tempe, AZ 85281 USA
bilbo@pnet02.cts.com (Bill Daggett) (03/31/88)
fnf@fishpond.UUCP (Fred Fish) writes: >Ier >rld probably continue on for several hundred more lines with additional >desirable features, tests, etc, but this ought to be enough to give some >food for thought. > >-Fred > ># Fred Fish hao!noao!mcdsun!fishpond!fnf (602) 921-1113 ># Ye Olde Fishpond, 1346 West 10th Place, Tempe, AZ 85281 USA Thanks Fred. I take it your backup program does all the things you mentioned? You'll probably get a phone call anyway but can you make some recommendations now that you've listed some great features? Bill UUCP: {ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax rutgers!marque}!gryphon!pnet02!bilbo INET: bilbo@pnet02.cts.com "Nicaragua" is NOT Spanish for "Vietnam". What does "Nicaragua" mean?