eric@abode.UUCP (Eric C. Bennett) (01/31/91)
I am currently in the market to purchase a tape backup unit for my SCO
XENIX 2.3.2 system. I am looking for an internal drive (with a controller
because I use an IDE controller on my HD. I want to save the other HD
controller for a future drive anyway). I would be backup up a 200 MB hard
drive. Any recommendations on what works best with XENIX and how big of
a backup drive I should get?
Eric
--
Eric C. Bennett uucp: {elroy|cit-vax}!wciu!abode!eric
El Monte, Ca Internet: eric@abode.wciu.edu
If you can read this you aren't looking through the hubble space telescope!cliffb@cjbsys.bdb.com (cliff bedore) (02/01/91)
In article <31@abode.UUCP> eric@abode.wciu.edu (Eric C. Bennett) writes: >I am currently in the market to purchase a tape backup unit for my SCO >XENIX 2.3.2 system. I am looking for an internal drive (with a controller ...... >Eric I've been meaning to post results of my efforts to find a good backup system for my XENIX system. Here's the perfect excuse. I bought a CMS internal drive from JADE set up for XENIX for $700.00 I mounted it in an external cabinet (It needs a relatively hefty PS) It installs with no problem, comes with a tape and will let you do a dump and a tar on the same tape using nrct0. (Do make sure you specify the one for XENIX.) No relationship with either CMS or JADE other than a happy customer Cliff
chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) (02/01/91)
In article <31@abode.UUCP> eric@abode.wciu.edu (Eric C. Bennett) writes: >I am looking for an internal drive (with a controller because I use an IDE >controller on my HD. I want to save the other HD controller for a future >drive anyway). You are confused. There are tape drives which connect to the floppy disk controller (QIC40), but not hard disk controllers. Even still, you are correct not to want one. They are ridiculous, flimsy, pokey, kludgy little toys. >I would be backup up a 200 MB hard drive. Any recommendations on what works >best with XENIX and how big of a backup drive I should get? Surprisingly, this is a fairly easy question to answer, because the choices are limited. At least they are if you rule out the crap `floppy tape' drives. There are three things you need to answer: - What interface technology? - What size? - Which manufacturer? There are three different kinds of interfaces: SCSI, QIC36, and QIC02. A SCSI tape drive will run off the same controller as other SCSI peripherals, e.g. disks. The other two types of tape drives require a dedicated controller. QIC36 controllers tend to be long-card format (and a bit smarter) and QIC02 controllers tend to be short-card format (and a bit stupider). I strongly recommend SCSI as the first choice. However, if you've already got something other than SCSI disks, then it's probably not justified. (Especially if you are running the AT version of XENIX!) If SCSI is not appropriate, then QIC36 is the way to go. Next question is, `what size?' The obvious answer is your tape needs to be as big as the space you will be backing up. The obvious answer is wrong. If you are the least bit intelligent about your backups - in particular you do some form of incremental backups - you'd be surprised at how small your tape really needs to be. For example, chinacat has 320MB of disk, and its backup is a 60MB tape. Once a quarter, when I do a full backup it does indeed take a bunch of tapes. However, all my daily and weekly incremental backups fit onto one tape. My backup policy is very conservative, but it still takes me only one tape to hold an incremental. And I only need to rummage through (at most) three backup sets to locate any file. With that said, I think 60MB is too small for 320MB - the 60MB tape was added when chinacat only had 150MB of disk. I think a good rule of thumb is your tape drive needs to be at least 1/3 the size of the disk. Since you've got a 200MB disk, you need a 66.7MB tape :-) Actually, I think 60MB would be fine for a 200MB disk, but if you were to add any more, 150MB might be preferable. The final question is which vendor? That's the easiest of all because there are only two: Maynard and Wangtek. Maynard drives used to be called Archive. Everything else, from Everex to Tecmar to Mountain is a Wangtek drive in somebody else's box. I've heard very good things about the Maynard drive (in particular the VP60/VP150 Viper series), but have not first-hand experience with them. I've been through many Wangtek drives, all with good results. I think either manufacturer, under whatever name you find, will be satisfactory, and the key factor is going to be price. One last point - there are two drawbacks to a 150MB tape over 60MB. First is obviously price. The second is that the QIC24 recording format is readable but not writable by 150MB tape drives. You can make a 60MB tape on a 150MB drive, but do not assume it can be read back on a 60MB drive. You will get badly burned by that assumption. -- Chip Rosenthal 512-482-8260 | If software look-and-feel can be protected, Unicom Systems Development | then I'd like to claim a copyright upon <chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM> | `Memory fault - core dumped'.