dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll) (11/26/90)
I just spent 45 minutes backing up my 30MB hard drive onto 360K floppies. I'm looking for a better backup program! Here's a list of features I'm looking for, in decreasing order of importance: - Ability to do incremental backups - Ability to format floppies as needed during the backup process - No choking if a floppy is bad - should be able to recover by asking for another floppy. - Ability to backup first to drive A, then B, then A, etc. to speed up backup - no waiting for disk swapping - Automatic ? compression of files as they're backed up - Creation of an index file specifying which disk(s) files were backed up to. Anyone have any pointers to such a program? Preferably public domain, as I'm notoriously cheap. :-) Thanks, -- David F. Skoll Department of Electronics dfs@doe.carleton.ca Carleton University (613) 786-7515 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
ralphs%halcyon.uucp@seattleu.edu (Ralph Sims) (11/27/90)
dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll) writes: > I just spent 45 minutes backing up my 30MB hard drive onto 360K > floppies. I'm looking for a better backup program! Here's a list > of features I'm looking for, in decreasing order of importance: [list of Good Things removed] > Anyone have any pointers to such a program? Preferably public domain, as > I'm notoriously cheap. :-) This would be Nice. :-) Backup programs should be given their spot in a newsgroup (alt.religion.backups?). Everyone has their favorite. The one that I've seen that does what you are asking for is FASTBACK, unfortunately it is commericial. But it works on my systems (one IBM PC, one IBM/XT, and ITT xTRA, a COMPAQ 386/16, a no-name 386/25 and a homebrew 8-bit 80286); if it were going to be inconsistent, I think I would have found out. Look to EGGHEAD Software for a good price.
clear@cavebbs.uucp (Charlie Lear) (11/27/90)
In article <dfs.659634972@wesley> dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll) writes: >I'm looking for a better backup program! Here's a list >of features I'm looking for, in decreasing order of importance: <list deleted> <Disclaimer - satisfied Fastback Plus user ravings follow> Every single feature you listed is built into Fastback Plus. I used to use Intelligent Backup and Back-It, until I needed to restore data from backups. Never again! I've been a committed Fastback Plus disciple ever since. If I may make a suggestion on your order of features, perhaps the two most important which should have been at the top are "Ease of restoring data" and "Data integrity and error correction". FB+ excels at both. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charlie "The Bear" Lear | The Cave MegaBBS +64 4 643429 Usenet/Fido/Files clear@cavebbs.gen.nz | PO Box 2009, Wellington, New Zealand V32-6 lines --------------------------------------------------------------------------
mlbarrow@athena.mit.edu (Michael L Barrow) (11/27/90)
In article <LmF0s3w163w@halcyon.uucp> ralphs%halcyon.uucp@seattleu.edu (Ralph Sims) writes:
Backup programs should be given their spot in a newsgroup
(alt.religion.backups?). Everyone has their favorite. The one that
I've seen that does what you are asking for is FASTBACK, unfortunately
it is commericial. But it works on my systems (one IBM PC, one IBM/XT,
and ITT xTRA, a COMPAQ 386/16, a no-name 386/25 and a homebrew 8-bit
80286); if it were going to be inconsistent, I think I would have found
out. Look to EGGHEAD Software for a good price.
Yes, Fastback is a fast program. I just hope you never have to restore
the data you backed up. It's not exactly intuitive. The first time I
used the program, I had to spend about 15 minutes trying to figure out
why the restore I just did resulted in no files on my hard disk. I've
also had to help several clients figure out how to restore.
I guess that's why it's called "FastBACK." It certainly isn't Fast
restore!
--Michael L Barrow
mlbarrow@mit.edu
o MIT Information Systems/Information Services MCR Consultant
o Project Athena Volunteer User Consultant
o Member, Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
o Oh, yeah.....I'm a student too! (MIT '93)
--
--Michael L Barrow
mlbarrow@mit.edu
o MIT Information Systems/Information Services MCR Consultant
o Project Athena Volunteer User Consultant
o Member, Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
o Oh, yeah.....I'm a student too! (MIT '93)mendi@netcom.UUCP (Greg Mendizabal) (11/27/90)
From article <dfs.659634972@wesley>, by dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll): > > Anyone have any pointers to such a program? Preferably public domain, as > I'm notoriously cheap. :-) > I was with you 100% until this point ^. I own PCBACKUP as part of PCTools. It is available standalone too, now. But it does everything you mentioned. Plus some. I haven't had any problems with it. But it ain't free.........if you want more details you can email me. GRM
dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (11/28/90)
In article <17539@netcom.UUCP> mendi@netcom.UUCP (Greg Mendizabal) writes:
# ........... I own PCBACKUP as part of PCTools.
#It is available standalone too, now. But it does everything you mentioned.
#But it ain't free.........if you want more details you can email me.
I use PCBACKUP too - indeed it's the main reason I bought PCTOOLS 6.
I particularly like its interactive interface, its ability to save
your favourite sets of backup options, its speed (it runs the hard disk and
the floppy simultaneously if your dual-port DMA can do so safely), and the
fact that it records recovery data on the diskette so it can recover all
your files even if your diskette develops errors (fortunately I haven't
had to test that feature yet but as everything else I've tried works I
believe them). Backup options include FULL and various incrementals;
you pick the combination you like.
I also like the fact that it estimates how many diskettes you'll need,
though it gets a bit optimistic if you use 'space optimise compression'
(unnoticably slower than 'time optimise' on a '286 up) on a disk full of
zoo files or other compressed data. It gets a good ratio on ordinary .exe
or text files though.
Regards, "None shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity"
David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK
dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWWESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Ed Russell) (11/28/90)
>From: mendi@netcom.UUCP (Greg Mendizabal) >Subject: Re: Wanted: Decent BACKUP program >Date: 27 Nov 90 05:41:02 GMT > >From article <dfs.659634972@wesley>, by dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll): >> >> Anyone have any pointers to such a program? Preferably public domain, as >> I'm notoriously cheap. :-) >> > >I was with you 100% until this point ^. I own PCBACKUP as part of PCTools. >It is available standalone too, now. But it does everything you mentioned. >Plus some. I haven't had any problems with it. Several posters have recomended FastBack Plus but I, like Greg, prefer the PCBackup in PC Tools. It's fast, it allows incremental backups onto the end of the previous backup set, it has several types of compression, and it's reliable. I recently had to restore my hard disk about three times as I was diagnosing and ultimately replacing my 80MB Seagate doorstop and never had a single problem.
ralphs%halcyon.uucp@seattleu.edu (Ralph Sims) (11/28/90)
ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Ed Russell) writes: > Several posters have recomended FastBack Plus but I, like Greg, prefer the > PCBackup in PC Tools. It's fast, it allows incremental backups onto the end > of the previous backup set, it has several types of compression, and it's > reliable. I recently had to restore my hard disk about three times as I If a marginally unacceptable disk is used with FASTBACK, one gets the opportunity to insert a fresh disk and proceed with the backup. I don't remember PCBackup allowing me to do this. With the cost of quality backup software around US$150 (and having to contend with subsequent upgades, floppies, etc.) a tape drive isn't a bad alternative, at about twice that cost.
lalibert@bcarh188.bnr.ca (Luc Laliberte) (11/29/90)
PCTools v6 contains PCBackup v6 which is equivalent to the most recent versions of Fastback or Norton Backup. (They all look amazingly similar.) I use PCBackup and it does the following: asks me if I want to overwrite a previous backup if I try to reuse disks, will not let me overwrite the current backup, if an error occurs, redo the disk. PCTools also includes programs for general file and directory maintance, defragmentation, and some file and disk recovery. Considering the whole package costs as much as the other backup programs alone....
charlie@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Charlie Duke) (12/01/90)
> > PCBackup in PC Tools. It's fast, it allows incremental backups onto the end > > of the previous backup set, it has several types of compression, and it's > > reliable. I recently had to restore my hard disk about three times as I > > If a marginally unacceptable disk is used with FASTBACK, one gets the > opportunity to insert a fresh disk and proceed with the backup. I > don't remember PCBackup allowing me to do this. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If I am not mistaken, PCBackup just skips bad tracks when it finds them, so that you don't have to begin again at all. In fact, if you are not quick, you will never know it happened until it takes more disks than you though it should. Charlie Duke
draper@buster.cps.msu.edu (Patrick J Draper) (12/03/90)
In article <11510008@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM> charlie@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Charlie Duke) writes: > PCBackup in PC Tools. It's fast, it allows incremental backups onto the end If I am not mistaken, PCBackup just skips bad tracks when it finds them, so >that you don't have to begin again at all. In fact, if you are not quick, you >will never know it happened until it takes more disks than you though it should. > >Charlie Duke So That's what happens! I was severely bitten by PC-Backup 5.0. Then I tried Norton's Backup, and it rejected several disks that PC-Backup was using. Even though PC-Backup 6.0 has ECC, I've been wary of it because it did not reject any diskettes - even known bad ones. Maybe I'll give it another shot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Patrick Draper In times like these it is helpful to buster.cps.msu.edu remember that there have always been times like these. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll) (12/05/90)
A while ago, I wrote asking for information on a public-domain MS-DOS backup program. Doesn't look like a good one exists. I'd like to thank all those who mailed me information, as well as those who posted. Right now, it looks like I'll be investigating FastBack and PC-Tools. Thanks again. -- David F. Skoll Department of Electronics dfs@doe.carleton.ca Carleton University (613) 786-7515 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada