jprice@uclapp.physics.ucla.edu (John Price) (03/08/90)
Here's the evaluation of Redux I promised. Don't worry, it'll be
short.
Good points: incredibly easy to use; good manual
Bad points: slow (27Meg in 1:08); no data compression
Before I damn them for being slow, I should say that I think my
disk was pretty fragmented before I started - that would slow down the disk
i/o, which could in part explain the lack of speed. However, it seems that
since they're not writing files in Finder-readable format anyway, they
should go ahead and compress the data - would this be faster due to not
needing so many disks, or would the compression itself end up taking more
time (Microseeds, are you out there)? Also, would compression be
compatible with the imaging method of backup that they now use?
This is an imaging program - my backup set (37 disks) contains the
entire disk. When I delete a file from my hard disk, and do a backup, that
file gets deleted from the backup save set. This should cut down on the
number of disks used by a large number.
It appears to be fully customizable. I say "appears", because I
didn't try it, and probably won't. I am not a power user, I just want to
make my backups as painless as possible. Luckily, incrementals should go
quickly, since I won't be changing all that many files all that often.
All in all, I like it. As I say, the first time you use it, it's
slow, but this program seems designed to make incremental backups rather
than full ones. You only do *one* full backup. Ever. I like that...
Disclaimer - I have no connections with Microseeds. They did not pay me
for this.
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John Price | Internet: jprice@uclapp.physics.ucla.edu
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UCLA Dept. of Physics | DECnet: uclapp::jprice
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Where there is no solution, there is no problem.