I have to agree with Al.  I have a 4.2 GB Quantum Fireball ST and use a 2 GB
Ditto parallel port tape drive (Sony StorStation) to back it up.  It takes more
than one tape and takes hours to run the backup and compare processes. (Anytime
you backup, you should compare the copy with the original - there are errors more
often than you might expect.)  Recently, the tape drive started yanking the tape
off of the spool.  Iomega provides instructions on how to re-spool the tape at
their web site.  However, the drive did the same thing again.  I called Sony and
they have a facility to send the defective drive to porvided it is within the
warranty period (2 years).  Mine is one year old and has already failed.  I am
sure that the one they will send me is rebuilt.  Sony also has another location
to send de-spooled tapes for replacement (replace the tape, not the data on it).
There is a third location to send tapes that offers recovery of data from a
de-spooled tape.  There are no costs for the services, but you pay for shipping
the materials to them.  In the mean time, you are without any backup means, and
you may have lost critical data, or at least time on a project waiting for data
to be recovered.  I have old project archived (one and only one copy) on these
tapes.  After this unpleasant experience, I am considering CD-RW as an
alternative means, though it looks like DVD-RW is close to coming to market.  Can
I afford to wait??  Like Al, I don't trust tapes anymore.

Jerry Rasmussen :-)
------------


> In our last episode
> Arnie Robuck <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >I think you are going way to far right for what you want to do. The
> >quickest, easiest and cheapest way to a complete backup of your system is to
> >use a tape.
>
> Sorry, I have to disagree with that entire statement.  Tape is slower
> than copying to another drive. The restore is -way- slower and much more
> work. First you need to reinstall the OS, then the backup. Plus I don't
> fully trust the tape medium.
>
> I fully copy to my back-up drive in about 6 1/2 min. (1.2 gig).
> To restore, swap the drives.
>
> Granted, I have made it very easy by using swapable drive bays (approx.
> $25 each) and Drive Copy (which I bata tested for PQ) which is much
> quicker than xcopy. And the copy is 'ready to run'. No need to set
> active partition, bla bla bla...
>
> To restore my system,
>
> 1. Unlock and swap drives
> 2. Power up.
>
> System restored in under 1 min.
>
> The key to any backup system is however, how long ago did you last make
> that backup? When you can back-up in under 7 min (in my case, YMMV) by
> running one DOS program, One is more likely to have a current, viable
> back-up.
>
> HTH
> Al Anger