Tape Drive Wanted
31 messages in this thread
Wanted:
SCSI Tape Drive for Amiga. Please leave details and asking price in CMail
(73445,407).
David Czaya …via AutoPilot
David,
I don't know how much you want to spend on a tape drive, but in
this month's AmigaWorld I saw an ad from a mail order company who was
selling a CBM A3070 tape drive (case and all) for $349. Just for your
info.
Thanks Steve. I did see that ad and seriously considered it, but found a
drive elsewhere. Thanks!!!!
David Czaya …via AutoPilot
David,
Great! Glad you found what you wanted. Tape backups can be nice,
but they do have one drawback. Although backups can be fast and
convenient, restoring a single file or a few files can be mucho time
consuming since you may have to search through a lot of tape to find the
file(s). But they are nice for big backups, although all in all not a lot
faster than floppies. I find that typical backup to tape is at around 3 to
4 meg per minute for file backups and that's only about 3 times faster than
floppies. I guess if one had the bucks the way to go is the DAT tapes
which are a lot faster than QIC.
Yeah, tapes are pretty slow. I use my Syquest and two cartridges to
backup my computer. Works pretty darn fast.
Donovan,
Yes, backing up to a fast drive is a lot quicker, and it's
especially more covenient if you do file backups and later need to restore
one or a few individual files. No need to wait while the tape is scanned
to find that one file you need, which just happens to be at the very end of
the backup!! That ends up taking just as much time as the backup itself.
Although tape is convenient, I find, for complete backups and permanent
archives, it isn't very convenient if you often need to restore individual
files. The unfortunate aspect of it all is that whether you use tape or
syquests you are looking at an expensive backup solution. I have a 240 meg
hard drive which would require about 4 of the 44 meg cartridges to back up
existing files at a cost of about $280, more or less, not including the
$400 plus cost of the drive and case. At the current cost of floppies I
figure that amounts to about 1,400 floppy disks! Given the speed of tape,
I'm no longer convinced that my tape drive is much of a benefit nor am I
convinced that the syquest route is either since one doesn't really do
backups too often. Gives one pause to think ….
Pick up an Archive/Wangtek 525meg tape drive….10 megs a minute isn't to
bad
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Dave,
I have an archive viper which is capable of doing a max of around 5
to 6 megs per minute, but only doing a mirror backup. File backups take
much longer, nearly half as fast. Although the tape drives can handle data
fast under the right conditions, usually doing file backups won't be near
the drive's capable speeds. Restores often take even longer than the
backups. Part of that problem might be that programs like AmiBack and QB
aren't optimized for tapes or that the optimum configuration for tape
backups isn't easily determined. I use AmiBack, but haven't the foggiest
notion of what configuration for the tape will maximize throughput.
AmiBack docs are no help, they say experiment to find the settings that
work best … that's not much help!!
I just sold my Archive 2150s and I have right now a wangtek 5525…..
With the archive it took me about an hour to do 130 megs….with this drive
I do it in about 15-17….close enough to 10 megs a minute for me.
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
Maybe your 2150S was set up wrong. Was this on an A1000 w/256k and a
Tecmar SCSI controller? <really big wide grin> The last time I ran the
2150S on my clunky old 2500/020 it did 4 meg/minute which would back up
your 130 megger in half an hour. The A3070 I use now does about the same.
The 2150S is now in a UNIX machine.
Goin' AP6
…..Mark Sterling6
Dave,
Indeed, much faster. However, I am stuck with the viper for right
now and will have to settle for slower!!
my viper backs up 120 meg in about 16 min's.
Steve,
I am getting about 6meg/minute with QB 5.0 and an A3070 on my A3000. I
also tried an Archive Viper with similar results. The 3070 does about
4.5meg/minute on an A2500/020. QB is set for Async data transfer, 512K
buffer size. Amiback runs about the same speed. This is NOT a mirror
backup. I only doe file-by-file backups. BTW the Archive drive does about
the same 6 meg/minute on a 486DX/33 machine running UNIX with an Adaptec
1542b SCSI controller.
Goin' AP6
…..Mark Sterling6
Mark,
I am using Asynch transfer with a buffer of 256k on AmiBack working
with an IVS Trumpcard Pro SCSI controller. Yesterday I backed up 17 meg of
files and it took, according to AmiBack's timer, about 7 minutes. It
should take less time, but for some reason the IVS card's built-in drive
detection slows things down considerably. I think it would go faster if
the drive could support reselection or if the IVS software could set the
tape drive for reselection. The IVS scanning seems to slow things down
quite a bit. When I was running a Nexus controller the same backup would
have taken about 4 to 5 minutes. In either case, however, that's slower
than 6 meg/minute which I have only seen during a mirror backup.
What processor are you running? 4-5 minutes for 17meg is not that bad but
7 minutes is real slow. There must be a problem with what hardware you are
using or the setup. The lowly 2091 controller has given me better
performance with a lowly 2500/020 which is only a 68020 running at 14mHz.
Goin' AP6
…..Mark Sterling6
Dave,
With Quarterback you can get fairly high data transfer rates when backing
up to tape. When doing a file backup we get over 5 megs a minute going to
Commodore's 3070 or our own Touchdown 100 tape drive, which is pretty much
the max transfer rate of the drives. With faster tape drives we get even
higher rates.
If you are using Quarterback (or for others out there who are), you can get
the fastest tape backup times by turning on the "No display while operation
in progress" check box (in the "Session Log" requester). You can also drop
by our vendor support section of AmigaVendor (section 1) if you have any
questions.
James Bayless
Central Coast Software
A division of New Horizons Software, Inc.
James,
Thank you for that suggestion. Unfortunately, I had to stop using
QB because it wouldn't work with my Nexus controller. After several calls
to Central Coast people asking for help and being assured a future upgrade
would fix the problem, it's still here. QB simply locks up the machine
when trying to run to tape using the Nexus controller. I recently
installed an IVS Grand Slam, but I no longer have a current version of QB
(I still only have 5.0) and haven't tried to see if it does work with the
Grand Slam. Perhaps I'll give it a try and see how it does.
Steven,
Sorry to hear that you are not using Quarterback. The problems with the
Nexus controller were due to the controller, not Quarterback (if memory
serves, they were not properly handling some of the SCSI commands that
Quarterback uses–they were seldom used commands, but still part of the
required SCSI command set). We tried to find a work-around in Quarterback
(that wouldn't hurt its performance on other controllers), but were not
able to find a satisfactory solution.
We did report the problems to the Nexus card's manufacturer. They
acknowledged the problem and said they would work on a fix. Apparently
they still haven't done that.
You can get patches to change your version of Quarterback (version 5.0) to
the latest version (version 5.0.3). The patch files are in our vendor
support section of AmigaVendor (section 1).
If you are still using the Nexus controller, you should contact their
manufacturer to see if they ever did, or plan to, fix it.
James Bayless
Central Coast Software
A division of New Horizons Software, Inc.
I agree. I guess DAT would be the elegant route but how much are they
these days? I think they are still _very_ expensive.
Donovan,
Yep, mucho expensive. Oh well, guess we must make do with what we
can afford, huh?
My main reason for getting a tape was that I have accumulated a couple hard
drives totalling around 350 megs and backing up to floppies is simply
impossible, economically or realistically. A tape drive was my only
recourse and I must have backups because I am running half my business off
this computer and I just couldn't afford a data loss. Up to now, I have
just been backing up critical data onto floppies, but it was getting scary.
Now, I can relax a bit.
David Czaya …via AutoPilot
David,
Yes, when you need to maintain permanent archives that large, then
the tape is helpful. It is most useful when you don't really need to use
the backups frequently and to do permanent archives. But floppies or some
other method is faster if you need to frequently restore individual files
from the backups, at least that's been my experience, rather than doing it
from the tapes. I admire your tempting fate for so long!!! Invariably, I
get comfortable when the system works well for a while and tend to ignore
doing daily or weekly backups. But I always end up paying the penalty for
being lax!! Last time I got careless it took me an entire day to restore
things. Experience is a tough taskmaster.
After two near disasters, I made up my mind to do daily backups of my
critical data. In fact, when I am doing a lot of work, I'll back up even
more often. It's more work in the short haul, but there's nothing so
aggravating as working for 6 hours on something and getting a black-out 5
minutes before you're done (except maybe typing Delete DH0: all and
walking away).
David Czaya …via AutoPilot
David,
Ain't that the truth!! Although I don't run a business off my
computer, I use several of them regularly as part of my work as a college
professor. I keep student records, research papers, letters, memos,
schedules, etc. Failure to back up can prove a disaster. It's really a
shame that most of us, me included, tend to get complacent and develop
that: "well it's working so well today, guess I'll wait until tomorrow to
do backups." Of course after several weeks of "tomorrows" it's too late to
recover from that blackout, power failure, etc. What is really needed is
both the hardware/software for automatic background backups. But even
then, I'd probably get lazy and forget to turn something on!!
Steve,
AmiBACK can do timed backups.
—Betty
I know. I was thinking more along the lines of just automatic backup,
rather than being timed to do full or incremental backups at specified
times. Using schedulers is, of coures, an easy way to accomplish somewhat
the same end result. Any backup program can be scheduled either with ARexx
or Cron or some such animal. Problem, though, is that even programs like
Amiback or QB tend to cause sluggish behavior while doing disk accesses
even tho they are supposed to be multi-tasking behaved. I would like to
see something truly transparent. But I know that's not feasible for these
small machines and my meager budget!
Backupers,
Seems to me that as long as all the data to be backed up fits on one
volume, speed is of secondary importance. If the backup fits on one
volume, it can be run at the end of the day, when one is done with the
computer. Mine only runs 1-2 shifts a day, depending on how long I can sit
in one place. I'll bet $$$ to doughnuts that my backup will finish during
the 3rd shift. 8^) Even if restore is slow, I'm thankful that I have the
data to restore. In my case, most of my tape use is write only. Hope it
stays that way. (QB 5.0 + A3070/ A4000 + extra Conner 120)
Ron
Ron,
In theory I could do all my backups on a single 250 meg tape,
provided the backup software supported tape append. I know that AmiBack
does, but I'm not sure if QB does, or at least I seem to remember that
early versions did not or that the documentation wasn't clear that it did.
However, I have my drive partitioned into 4 different drives and it would
be much easier to keep track of things by keeping a separate tape for each
partition, That makes automatic backups a bit of a pain because tapes
would have to be changed. Were I to go the easier route of appending all
backps to a single tape, then it would be a LONG wait to scan a 250 meg
tape to get the last volume on it! There just doesn't seem to be a perfect
solution!!!
Steven,
You can easily backup several different hard disk partitions to the same
tape with Quarterback. We even include an AREXX macro with Quarterback
that makes it automatic. Drop by our vendor support section (section 1) of
the AmigaVendor forum if you need any assistance with this.
James Bayless
Central Coast Software
A division of New Horizons Software, Inc.
James,
Yes, I noted the ARexx macro and took a look at it. It appears
that you simply have to NOT rewind the tape at the end of backup, from what
I could tell. Can you restore separate partitions from a multiple backup
or do you have to restore all the partitions at one time? I couldn't tell
from the macro what the procedure for restore is. If you cannot restore a
partition individually, then you should think about including that facility
in a future revision. AmiBack includes append as an integral part of
program control of the backup/restore operations. Thus, if you need to
access only a single partition on the tape, you can scan directly to that
part of the tape to do the restore. Does QB work similarly?
Steven,
Yes, Quarterback does allow you to restore individual partitions from a
tape that has several different ones on it. Use the "Space" command in the
"Tape Control" requester to advance (space) the tape to the partition you
want to restore (incidentally, the "Tape Control" requester is also where
you set Quarterback to not automatically rewind after each backup). Its
all pretty simple once you have tried it.
James Bayless
Central Coast Software
A division of New Horizons Software, Inc.