rea@AntHill.UUCP (Robert E. Anderson) (10/03/90)
--
I followed the articles a couple of months back on SCSI tape
drives for the Amiga. From this I gathered that somebody had
put together a driver that supported the Amiga version of tar.
At the time I had a 20Meg Seagate that I was doing automatic
backups to (using Dillon's backup and DCron). I was able to do
automated fulls once a month and incrementals every morning. Since
that time the Seagate has died, although this did not affect me
a lot I am left doing floppy backups.
This Saturday I will be going to a swap/sale fest that has a lot
of non-state-of-the-art hardware. Since I have a Sun 3/60 on my
desk at work I would like to pick up a 1/4" tape compatible with
the one in my shoebox at work.
Looking for:
1) The drivers for any SCSI tape drive (ftp sites, as IP #'s)
BBS #'s here would be fine, preferably ones I could call
and download the needed software w/o waiting for registration.
2) Do I need a 1/4" 9 track 150 Meg tape drive to be compatible
with the one in my Sun? Or will others be capable of
bi-directional transfer via a few options?
3) Information on any known problems with leaving a tape in
a 1/4" drive in my HD bay of a B2000 and adding to it each
day. Do the heads sit on the tape and kill data?
4) What brands of 1/4" Half height drives will work the way
I wish to use it.
5) Aside from links are there other problems with using tar
between unix and the Amiga. And can/will this be fixable
when I am able to run under 2.0?
Thanks for any replies!
P.S. I would not mind informing anybody who would like information
on the automation of HD backups how I implemented it. Since
people tend to ignore backups way too much, and it could use
the publicity.
P.P.S. Knowbody has informed me of that spelling checker that
prempts my typing. So pardon the atrocious spelling (isn't
that the first sign of a CS person :)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Robert E. Anderson From the Ant Hill
Research Computing Center unhd.unh.edu!AntHill!rea
Durham NH 03824 Amiga 2000 UUCP / Dillon
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Welcome my son, welcome to the machine." - Pink Ploydbillsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) (10/04/90)
In article <rea.2176@AntHill.UUCP> rea@AntHill.UUCP (Robert E. Anderson) writes:
:
:I followed the articles a couple of months back on SCSI tape
:drives for the Amiga. From this I gathered that somebody had
:put together a driver that supported the Amiga version of tar.
:At the time I had a 20Meg Seagate that I was doing automatic
:backups to (using Dillon's backup and DCron). I was able to do
:automated fulls once a month and incrementals every morning. Since
:that time the Seagate has died, although this did not affect me
:a lot I am left doing floppy backups.
:
:This Saturday I will be going to a swap/sale fest that has a lot
:of non-state-of-the-art hardware. Since I have a Sun 3/60 on my
:desk at work I would like to pick up a 1/4" tape compatible with
:the one in my shoebox at work.
:
:Looking for:
:
: 1) The drivers for any SCSI tape drive (ftp sites, as IP #'s)
: BBS #'s here would be fine, preferably ones I could call
: and download the needed software w/o waiting for registration.
So far, I haven't seen either of the PD drivers I've been
playing with posted. You might get in touch directly with the
authors though... I've seen two similar implementations, one by
Markus Wandel (uunet!bnrgate!bnr-rsc!mwandel) and one by Bob
Rethemeyer (DrBob@cup.portal.com). There are also specific tape
drive drivers for some scsi cards. Check with the manufacturer
of your scsi controller to see if they make one. (I know GVP and
Nexus do...)
: 2) Do I need a 1/4" 9 track 150 Meg tape drive to be compatible
: with the one in my Sun? Or will others be capable of
: bi-directional transfer via a few options?
If your Sun uses the 150M tapes (DC6150) and you wish to do
bi-directional data transfers, you will need a QIC-150 format
compatible tape drive. Look for something like the Wangtek 5150ES
or the Archive 2150S (I've still got a couple of the Archive 2150S
drive unspoken for, $450 each... :-))
: 3) Information on any known problems with leaving a tape in
: a 1/4" drive in my HD bay of a B2000 and adding to it each
: day. Do the heads sit on the tape and kill data?
Afraid I can't help you there... I haven't seen any problems
on my system here at home, but then I haven't been looking for more
problems. :-)
: 4) What brands of 1/4" Half height drives will work the way
: I wish to use it.
Anything that will both read and write QIC-150 will work
between your two systems. It's very possible that the Sun will
also read and write QIC-120 (120M with DC-600A tapes). Note that
you can usually read, but not write, other formats like QIC-24
and/or QIC-11.
: 5) Aside from links are there other problems with using tar
: between unix and the Amiga. And can/will this be fixable
: when I am able to run under 2.0?
I haven't actually transfered files between UNIX and Amiga...
Although tar is supposed to write compatible formats.
:Thanks for any replies!
:
:P.S. I would not mind informing anybody who would like information
: on the automation of HD backups how I implemented it. Since
: people tend to ignore backups way too much, and it could use
: the publicity.
So far, I've had the best luck backing up with the Nexus
card and Nexus tape driver and Quarterback... Markus's stuff is
a close second. Bob's stuff looks like it may be specific to his
3M tape drive, but I haven't looked into it in depth yet.
:P.P.S. Knowbody has informed me of that spelling checker that
: prempts my typing. So pardon the atrocious spelling (isn't
: that the first sign of a CS person :)
:----------------------------------------------------------------
:Robert E. Anderson From the Ant Hill
:Research Computing Center unhd.unh.edu!AntHill!rea
:Durham NH 03824 Amiga 2000 UUCP / Dillon
:----------------------------------------------------------------
:"Welcome my son, welcome to the machine." - Pink Ployd
--
-Bill Seymour billsey@agora
***** American People/Link Amiga Zone Hardware Specialist NES*BILL *****
Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes
(503) 281-8153 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842