grant@cft.philips.nl (Joe Grant) (06/15/90)
Hello Net, I need some advice about backup media. I was considering using Tops over Ethernet to backup on our Sun (some of you may have seen a posting I made a few days back), but naturally enough our Sun sys. admin. isn't that happy about the extra work, so I now need to investigate other possibilities. I have been considering tape streamers and removable hard disks. So far I have contacted the local Procom Technology dealer, and have been quoted very similar prices for a PMT60/M 60MB tape streamer and a MRD40/M 42MB removable hard disk, so the two options don't seem so far apart. What I really need to know is: 1) Have people found the Procom products reliable? 2) Is there a standard stream tape format - i.e. can tapes written by one manufacturers streamer be read by another? 3) Is there a good reason why I shouldn't use the removable? 4) What other manufacturers should I look at. I don't envisage heavy usage, monthly backups of two 80Mb disks with weekly incrementals is currently my only requirement, plus some archiving of bits and pieces from the net, so a simple, reliable, and cheap solution is what I need :-). Coupled with the hardware question, is, naturally enough, a software question. What backup software to use? I'd like to have the backup run automatically, be able to select files and folders for backup and restore, and be able to restore to a different location/machine than the original. And now for the "piece of resistance" as we fluent franglais speakers would say, we are also running A/UX. Ideally I would like to be able to simply dump the complete A/UX partitions to the tape/removable, and control the tape/removable from within A/UX for tar purposes. It's this last requirement that I'm most concerned about with regard to the removable hard disk. Anyway, all help would be appreciated, including opinions, related experience, advice on venders to contact etc... Joe Grant. -- Joe Grant, Telex : 35000 phtc nl/nlmtfarr Philips B.V., Building HKJ-p833, Telefax : (31.40.7)37222 P.O. Box 218, 5600 MD Eindhoven, E-mail : grant@nlccl.cft.philips.nl The Netherlands. Telephone : (31.40.7)34382