) (04/17/91)
I have messed around with 3-4 different versions of Sytos, and they all were for tape controller cards only. No tape drives that ran off of a floppy controller could be recognized. So, based on their previous record, I'd say that getting the 80mb PS/2 tape to be seen by Sytos is a long shot at best. Tell me what you think of Sytos for PM though, I'd be interested to find out. Their Dos versions were pretty decent but the interfaces are really clunky.
GD.SAR@forsythe.stanford.edu (Sandy Rockowitz) (04/20/91)
In article <1991Apr16.223559.21655@milton.u.washington.edu>, horker@milton.u.washington.edu (Snicko!) writes: >Tell me what you think of Sytos for PM though, I'd be interested to find out. >Their Dos versions were pretty decent but the interfaces are really clunky. I've been using Sytos/PM for several months now. Its basically sound, though definitely a "Version 1.0" product. The best thing I can say about it in comparison to Sytos is reliability. With the DOS version I was troubled with on the order of 1 unrecoverable error per 100MB, even with error correction on. With Sytos/PM, operation has been flawless. Among its other nice features is file compression. While this makes backup take considerably longer, it allows me to backup a 100 MB disk on a 60 MB tape. On the other hand, Sytos allowed me to use a 1000 foot tape in my Cipher 5400 drive which was designed for a maximum of 600 feet. With Sytos/PM I can't get away with it. The user interface is reasonably easy to use, and I rarely need to refer to the documentation. My major frustration with te product is that procedures cannot be parameterized, which makes it hard to run procedures from batch files and forces me to go through the PM interface to make minor changes. For example, I use the tape volume to identify the backup. What I would like to do is pass the volume id as a parameter to a procedure. Instead I must go though the menus to modify an existing procedure to change the volume id. Similarly, it would be nice to be able to construct a list of files to backup outside of Sytos, then pass that list in a file to a Sytos procedure. I'd also like to see better reporting, for example the number of errors recovered by error correction, and the number of megabytes backed up after compression is applied. Lastly, there are a number of minor bugs in the interface, such as always showing help for the first button in a list, no matter where the mouse is positioned. Sandy Rockowitz gd.sar@forsythe.stanford.edu