Animator not Pro!
6 messages in this thread
Craig – Basically, they're fine. They are not real fast, but they're as
fast as a reasonable hard drive was two years ago. One thing to bear in
mind, though, is that they do go bad, just like floppies can. We use them
to move massive files to service bureaus and the like, but not for
permanent storage of "mission critical" items. Generally, when one craps
out, Norton utilities or another like it can resurrect the disk and data.
I've only had one die outright. On the other, other hand, once you get the
drive, the cartridges are dirt cheap (about $70/40 MB). At that cost, you
could probably use two containing the same data for the archiving purpose
and not have to worry at all. Plus, they don't die that often, any more
than floppies do. Now, with all of that said, let it be known that none of
our PC sport one of these, only our Macs. When they go bad, it tends to be
loss of SCSI driver or Vol Info Block data, so the disk won't mount or
can't tell where anything is on itself. These kinds of errors I consider to
be sympomatic of the Mac OS which, as I MENtioned to that Wayne guy, is the
most unstable out there. Hope that helps a bit. Find a money-back guarantee
and give it a whirl….For archiving, I use ArcServe running on MicroNet 5
GB DAT tapes. The access time is about 20+ seconds for finding a particular
file. Not bad, considering it's tape.
David Taffet
David:
Yeah… that's pretty good. I used Colorado Memory before and the access
time from tape load was about 6 minutes… and then about .2 seconds once
the tape directory was read… Drives you nuts if you don't know what is on
the tape, plus you have to keep adding volumes of the same stuff instead of
updating the single volume. Soo…. we ended up with a 'flying' tape and
then an 'archive' when we 'thought' the project was finished <Grin>.
I'm interested in this because I will create a disk, or two, for each
project and keep updating the files. When I'm done with a certain stage of
the project that I would like to keep for archive purposes, then I will
just get another disk. You don't think this is a good idea because the
media isn't stable enough, I gather?
C#
No, I wouldn't go so far as to say I think the media is not stable enough.
It's really at least as good as floppies. Plus the storage capacity is
obviously great. Another benefit is in transporting files to service
bureaus. I just wanted to let you know (you probably already did) that the
media is not fail safe. A couple of copies is still a good idea. Regarding
your old tape system, ArcServe and a Mac program we also use for interim
drive clearing both are able to do incremental backups, meaning they only
back up files that have changed since the last backup. They also keep a log
file of what is on each tape, in each session. Palindrome, another DAT
system (proprietary, tho' and costing around $5000) will even label each of
your tapes, migrate files off your drive that have not changed in X amount
of time and tell you which tape to insert to get the file you call for
restoring. Now, to throw another wrinkle in, for about 2 times the money
you could get a 3 1/2" optical drive that holds 128 MB per $30 disk and,
being optical, has a shelf life of about 10 years. You could put them up on
your refridgerator with cute little magnets and they'd still be good. Back
to the Syquests (hop here, hop there), as I said, we only use them on Macs,
so the stability on a DOS system is an unknown to me. I'd guess it to be
much better, as with the operating systems themselves. So, I haven't said
"Yes" or "No", so that makes me a real expert, right <g>. Let me know what
you decide……
DT
David:
Thanks. I've often wondered about optical drives… maybe I should just get
a CD writer… Sony's coming out with one…
C <Money money money money… MONEY> #
I hadn't heard about this. You mean really, like, CD's? Not rewritable
opticals? How many arms and legs is this thing gonna cost?
DT
<Money, money….is that Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead?><g>
David:
I, um… wanna say $14k, but I'm not sure… G knows, I think.
C#