[comp.sys.atari.st] ICD FAST Tape Backup

covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (10/25/89)

I need to backup my 130 meg hard drives on my Mega ST4 and
am interested in hearing from anyone about the ICD FAST Tape
Backup. I understand that it lists for about $900. But, the 
tapes are 150 megabytes and cost about $30 (US dollars).

the 44 megabyte removable sysquest drive can be added to 
my Toad computers hard drive for an addtional $700, but the
cartridges are $110 each. and they are only 44 meg each. so, while the
ICD FAST Tape is more expensive I would save in the long run on the
tapes. The bad thing is that the tapes are slower then the removable
drive cartridge and can't be used as online storage. If the removable
cartridges sold for about $30 I would go with it.

so, does anyone have the ICD FAST Tape backup?? 

What do you think of it? 

How reliable are the tapes?

Can you do a file by file backup (backup an entire partition file by
file)?

Can you restore an individual file from tape??

What is the shelf life of the tapes?? Can I store them for years
w/o losing data?

Please post your experiences with either the removable drive cartridge
or with the ICD FAST Tape unit. 

Thanks.

Richard Covert