malczews@girtab.usc.edu (Frank Malczewski) (06/25/89)
I am interested in owning a 150MB tape drive for (using the Teac CT-600N
tapes). This is primarily due to a recent Disk Express catastrophe
(fortunately fixable, but a real pain).
There are currently five different drives available via mail order (as
advertised in the "big two"), one of which I have been using (evaluating
under a 30-day money-back guarantee). These are:
Shamrock's Orchard [the one I am trying out -- available "locally" to me]
Everex's EMAC 150T
MacCrate's
MicroNet's
Dolphin's Flipper
I am somewhat unhappy with the software accompanying the Orchard drive (but
I have only had the drive since yesterday, and am waiting on the software
manual to arrive next week sometime). It provides for an image backup
capability, that can only be restored to the drive it backed up (or perhaps
a drive with the same name with the same or larger size (?? where ??
indicates haven't tried yet). In either case, it apparently only backs
up the non-free space files, but I wasn't quite brave enough to restore
it until I am completely prepared.
It also provides file by file backup, but I have not had any success yet;
it has crashed very near the end of the restoration phase twice -- each time
being preceeded by an individual backup (perhaps the tape is defective - I'm
not sure what error -1024 means (yet ??)). I am attempting to backup
approximately 100M and move it to another partition on my drive. The
crashing behavior may be the cause of some of the folders/files ending up in
the wrong place folder-wise, but the most irritating characteristic is that
the modification dates of all restored files are of either (all of this
was discovered yesterday) the date the file was backed up or the date the
file was restored (same day, so can't quite tell); in any case, it is not
the date on disk.
The file software is script driven, so will supposedly backup whatever
file(s) you want and any subset thereof, although it appeared to avoid
backing up my [bracketed] folders (ala DiskFit).
The drive itself appears to be pretty nice though.
Anyway, I was wondering whether any of the other four drives provided a
better piece of backup software; to me this means:
1. files will keep their original creation/modification dates
2. folder hierarchy structure will be retained and view preferences
3. backup sets can be placed on any disk/partition as long as there is
sufficient space for them
I've also read that (no real details) some of the popular backup utilities
that we all use and love will be providing support for the
Teac-based drives real soon now. Is anyone aware of which applications
these might be, and whether they will support the 150MB density?
And when exactly (more or less) such versions will be available? I
use a combination of DiskFit/floppies and still more floppies to keep a
complete backup set (+/- a few files here and there).
Also, any opinions on the overall reliability of the 150MB Teac hardware
platform?
Thanks...
-- Frank Malczewski (malczews@castor.usc.edu)dantz@cdp.UUCP (06/29/89)
Frank, If you are unhappy with the software that comes with the various TEAC drives you are evaluating, you might consider using Retrospect, the new backup and archiving application from Dantz Development, the makers of DiskFit. Retrospect works quite well with the TEAC 150 drive. It works independently from the manufacturer's software to do fast, reliable backup. With Retrospect, you can choose the hardware that gives you the best price, warranty, etc, and gain more functionality than any manufacturer's software. Retrospect preserves the original creation/modification dates, the folder hierarchy is preserved in both the archive and when you restore, and backup sets can be restored partially, or fully to any volume that has room for the files. Retrospect offers unattended backup, compression, extensive file selection, and scripting. We found in our testing process that the TEAC 150 hardware is quite reliable. The drive is both fast and reliable. If you would like more information about Retrospect, send me your address and I would be glad to send you our spec sheet and other information. Walt Hays Dantz Development Corp.
malczews@girtab.usc.edu (Frank Malczewski) (07/01/89)
Walt: Thanks for the info on Retrospect; I recently saw an release notice type of article in MacWeek... including its price. Since Fastback II is offering a 40$ deal for users of other backup software (in my case, DiskFit), I decided that 40 bucks vs. whatever Retrospect's discount price may be would be preferable at this time. To anyone interested: My initial evaluation of the Shamrock Teac 150MB drive should be updated, so as not to leave anyone with in incomplete picture... My posting was based on an earlier version of the backup software that was provided to me over the weekend, while the official version arrived. Most of the problems that I noticed with the file by file backup were the result of a failure of this earlier version while it was apparently updating the modification dates and folder structure to their backed up values. This was corrected in the version I got this past Monday. Nevertheless, the software is still a bit sensitive (it crashed upon quitting once), and perhaps a bit inefficient (but I really have no basis for comparison in terms of tape backup software). I think its sensitivity may be related to caching (either the RAM cache available through the General cdev, or the caching resident within my 68020 cpu). It seems to work fine when both of these are turned off, but I have not had the opportunity to try out each of the caches individually. Its inefficiency relates to how it restores modification dates and such during the file by file backup; it apparently puts all of the files onto disk first, then rescans the tape a number of times to get the modification dates (and possibly other information) back in order. The first time I did this I thought the software had become stuck in and endless loop and just stopped it. The second time, after turning off the two caches, there was no problem, as when I awoke the next morning, it had correctly completed restoring the 3000 files correctly. The image backups work just fine on each of my partitions (individually), and is quite fast in backup and restore. Restoration to other disks in this format (or other partitions) may be a problem, though; I have not tried this. Also, the drive comes with an 18" SCSI cable, so if you have the smaller Macs, this is ideal; the Mac II's size requires a longer cable (and thus my earlier post for a 3ft (preferably) to 6ft SCSI 25pin to 50pin cable. I'll probably keep it. OBTW, does anyone know of a computer supply place that sells Data Spec cables? -- Frank Malczewski (malczews@girtab.usc.edu)