#Hi Cap Disk Storage
7 messages in this thread
When you mean that the optical disk is slow, how much so? I
understand that you probably wouldn't want to use it as a swap
drive, but I would think that it would have to be better than tape.
(My local dealer just tried to sell me on that very drive.) I was
thinking that I could save the rendered images on it though and then
dump them to video directly off the optical disk. If I buy a larger
fixed drive, I know I will fill it up and have the same problem no
long from now. Coupling it with a tape might work though. Are
there any disadvantages to the HP tape drive over the Exabyte?
The RICOH's speed is comparable with that of a fast CDROM. Around
400k/sec transfers (as opposed to SCSI-II's almost 5M/s). With these
big hard drives poping up (9G and above) for the same price as these
optical devices, I see no point there.
Hewlett Packard's only disadvantage is not being the so called ABEKAS
standard. As I wouldn't ever need D1, I couldn't care less about
that. The $1,500 difference paid a good dinner (in Milan)… If you
ever consider going the D1 route, the Exabyte is an appealing option
though.
What type of software interface does the HP tape drive use? Is it
easy to use? The one thing that I have found in working with the
QIC-80 tapes, is that Norton Backup is extreemely easy to use. The
software that came with the Colorado took my network down everytime I
used it. I don't want to go through that again.
I'm not sure if the current Norton's backup software handles SCSI
devices. At any rate, Symantec just acquired Fifth Generation who
makes Fast Back. They are probably going to have something out of it
soon. Fast Back works just fine with any SCSI device. Central Point's
Backup also handle all these devices. The nice thing about SCSI is
that the software doesn't have to know the hardware. All the commands
are standard and they [should] work the same with anything you attach
to your SCSI chain.
Novastor makes very fast, good SCSI only backup software. It's called
Novaback and is available in Unix, Dos, and OS/2 flavors.
Hey I may want that. Does this Novaback knows your tape unit has
compression? What does it tell you about space available after
you've saved a bunch of data? My HP is able to save up to 8G but I
can't ever tell how much space I have used and how much is left as
all the tape backup software I've tried only tells me the
"uncompressed" space. That's kinda funny when you backup 2gig and the
backup software says you had 1.3G to begin with. It will then tell you
have 0k free but I manage to put another 2gig… go figure.
This may sound funny, but I've never really checked on the stuff
you're asking about. I just pop the tape in and let it rip. I'll
take a peek in the manuals and post another message with the answers.