bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre) (06/17/89)
In article <3832@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU>, bill@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (William Tsai) writes: > At work we are deciding on what type/brand of tape backup should be > get. We have a Compaq 386/25 with 300 Meg HD running SCO 2.3.1. > Any input in any price range would be greatly approciated. > > bill@vax1.udel.edu > University of Delaware CIS ARPA: bill@vax1.acs.udel.EDU > (302) 738-1716 " The computer doesn't hate everybody - just you... " The best bargin for the money seems to be the ARCHIVE FASTPE for 60MB of storage for about $600, either Internal or External. Check your distributor for Prices, but I buy ours from TECH DATA. They also have a newer system called VIPER that is either 60MB or 150MB for less than $1750 for internal or external. These drives are reliable, and use the internal drivers of SCO for either standard transportable tapes, or ECC format tapes. I have moved tapes from these to ATT3B, IBM-RT, and several other machines. There are other fancier, more expensive tape drives, but not necessarily any better. bruce -- ========================================================================= Bruce A. McIntyre, McIntyre Designs, Inc. VOICE(215)322-1895 143 Bridgetown Pike, Langhorne, Pa. 19047 DATA (215)357-2915 {wells|lgnp1|prapc2}!mdi386!bruce bruce@wells tbit+ Unix, Xenix, Netware and PC-DOS Applications development. Specializing in Database Applications since 1980.
chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (06/23/89)
According to bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre): >The best bargin for the money seems to be the ARCHIVE FASTPE for 60MB of >storage for about $600, either Internal or External. Our experience has been nothing but trouble when an Archive tape is used in a fast I/O bus. Tecmar tapes, on the other hand, work like a champ. Note that fast CPU's don't necessarily have fast I/O buses. Check your hardware documentation. Any faster than 6MHz -- maybe 8MHz, maybe -- and I would avoid Archive. -- You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. Chip Salzenberg | <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> A T Engineering | Me? Speak for my company? Surely you jest!
chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) (06/29/89)
In article <24A22AC7.14780@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >Tecmar tapes, on the other hand, work like a champ. We see pretty much the same here using their QT-60e drive. I wish the tape streamed a little more steady, but that isn't necessarily the tape's fault. My one caution is under no circumstances follow Tecmar's recommendation and get the Sytos XENIX drivers. I don't even know if they still do this now that SCO's tape driver supports this unit. The Sytos drivers are exceedingly brain dead (e.g. system hangs during rewind), and these folks will not support the drivers. -- Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337 "I wish you'd put that starvation box down and go to bed" - Albert Collins' Mom
jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer) (06/29/89)
In article <24A22AC7.14780@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >Note that fast CPU's don't necessarily have fast I/O buses. Check your >hardware documentation. Any faster than 6MHz -- maybe 8MHz, maybe -- and >I would avoid Archive. I have to disagree here. We have sold the Archive drive when it was repackaged by Everex, and now are selling the drive directly. It has been plugged into an Everes Step/25 with the bus running at 12.5 Mhz, and have absolutely no problems. JB -- Jonathan Bayer Beware: The light at the end of the Intelligent Software Products, Inc. tunnel may be an oncoming dragon 500 Oakwood Ave. ...uunet!ispi!root Roselle Park, NJ 07204 (201) 245-5922 jbayer@ispi.UUCP
bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre) (07/01/89)
In article <24A22AC7.14780@ateng.com>, chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: > According to bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre): > >The best bargin for the money seems to be the ARCHIVE FASTPE for 60MB of > >storage for about $600, either Internal or External. > > Our experience has been nothing but trouble when an Archive tape is used in > a fast I/O bus. Tecmar tapes, on the other hand, work like a champ. > > Note that fast CPU's don't necessarily have fast I/O buses. Check your > hardware documentation. Any faster than 6MHz -- maybe 8MHz, maybe -- and > I would avoid Archive. We have found the Archive drive runs very well on Compac, Mylex, IBM PS/2 and others. I found that I could NOT run the DOS version at over 8mhz using the SYTOS drivers, but when booted up at 16mhz or 20mhz with 10mhz bus speed, there is no trouble. We use the fix-disk drivers for the new short controller board under SCO 2.3.2 and 2.3.3, and the old drivers (standard SCO) for the older LONG board. I use interrupt 5 since I don't have a mouse attached. bruce -- ========================================================================= Bruce A. McIntyre, McIntyre Designs, Inc. VOICE(215)322-1895 143 Bridgetown Pike, Langhorne, Pa. 19047 DATA (215)357-2915 {wells|lgnp1}!mdi386!bruce bruce@wells tbit+ Unix, Xenix, Netware and PC-DOS Applications development. Specializing in Database Applications since 1980.
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (07/03/89)
In article <24A22AC7.14780@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >According to bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre): >>The best bargin for the money seems to be the ARCHIVE FASTPE for 60MB of >>storage for about $600, either Internal or External. > >Our experience has been nothing but trouble when an Archive tape is used in >a fast I/O bus. Tecmar tapes, on the other hand, work like a champ. > >Note that fast CPU's don't necessarily have fast I/O buses. Check your >hardware documentation. Any faster than 6MHz -- maybe 8MHz, maybe -- and >I would avoid Archive. I disagree here. We use Archive Viper drives on systems with bus speeds up to 16 Mhz. They seem to work fine; I haven't had any problems with them. Then again, the systems we sell have each bus (8, 16, 32 bit) settable individually. This helps out a great deal, and avoids the problem entirely -- you simply set the 8-bit bus to whatever the system's boards can handle. Normally we run the 8-bit bus at 1 wait state; Archive viper's work great set up like this. We also get nearly 5MB/minute speed out of them when using decent software (afio with double-buffering enabled, for example). The OLDER archive boards (full-length) don't like high bus speeds. The newer ones (half-card) haven't had any problems here. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"
davidsen@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (07/04/89)
In article <95@mdi386.UUCP> bruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre) writes: | We have found the Archive drive runs very well on Compac, Mylex, IBM PS/2 | and others. I found that I could NOT run the DOS version at over 8mhz using | the SYTOS drivers, but when booted up at 16mhz or 20mhz with 10mhz bus speed, | there is no trouble. We use the fix-disk drivers for the new short controller | board under SCO 2.3.2 and 2.3.3, and the old drivers (standard SCO) for | the older LONG board. I use interrupt 5 since I don't have a mouse attached. Yes to all of the above. The MS-DOS software uses timing loops to determine when the drive doesn't come ready (I have three versions, there may be others) and times out on a fast machine. The Archive seems to run perfectly in a 8MHz bus, I have seen one out of one run 12 MHz, but I strongly discourage running anything but memory over 8MHz unless you're willing to choose add-in boards from a subset of available units. -- - bill davidsen (davidsen@crdgw1.uucp) GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8, KW-C206; Schenectady NY 12345
chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (07/06/89)
According to jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer):
>[Archive tapes work in Everex machines with bus speeds of 12.5MHz]
If so, I'm glad Archive has fixed their bugs. The fact is that an Archive
tape failed in my AT clone at 10MHz; it worked when I dropped the bus speed
to 6MHz. That was about six months ago.
--
You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.
Chip Salzenberg | <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip>
A T Engineering | Me? Speak for my company? Surely you jest!