CompuServe Messages

As a followup to this: I put in an order for the PPS product, but after several weeks cancelled it and purchased a Nexus controller and the Nexus 250 meg SCSI tape drive. Cost for the tape drive (bare) was about the same as the PPS product. The drive doesn't respond well to other software than the Nexus software. The Nexus driver treats the tape as purely an archival backup device. It doesn't support a file system nor can you append to an existing backup on the tape. All writes are overwrites, thus it isn't suitable for interim backups unless you want to use smaller tapes. It will handle 40, 60, 120, and 250 meg tapes (1/4 ") just by changing the mountlist entries (actually by having several entries with each one tailored for the capacity of tape.) I use both 60 and 250 meg tapes. The larger tape is ideal for doing mirror backups. You can do mirror backups of an AMAX volume, but not a file by file backup of an AMAX volume. File by file and mirror backups are supported for an Amiga volume. The backup speed maxes at about 5 meg/min. for mirror backups and 2-4 meg/min. for file by file backups. The Nexus controller comes with Flashback as the backup software and Flashback fully uses the tape drive. Other backup software isn't nearly as fast.