Re: retro for a small windows set-up
Hi, For such a small backup, I think DAT might be a bit expensive. Just my $0.02. Also, I think that zip disks would be more reliable, but who knows - luckily(?) retrospect is very good at error checking, so you only need to worry about media failure after backup. For 600MB, why not look at a JAZ drive or an ORB drive? They are much cheaper than DAT, and backups would be much faster. Unless they plan on archiving a lot of backups in a file cabinet, a removable drive is a good way to go - but if you want to have 10 separate backup sets in a file cabinet, the cost goes up as disks are no where near as cheap as tapes. I suggest a JAZ or ORB rather than a ZIP to avoid frequent media swaps. I do this on 1 PC in my lab. I'd stick to SCSI or IDE if either is an option - using parallel ports is *way* slow. In general parallel ports cannot be daisy chained, except for junk like dongles, and Iomega Zip drives that are specially designed to go in between your computer and printer. I've heard some bad stories about how well this works, so I'd personally only do it as a last resort. For drivers, the answer is "it depends". Win 9x and NT have an assortment of standard drivers included, but often they are missing the ones you want, or the ones included are old or brain-dead. Usually it is a good idea to load the drive MFRs most recent drivers; some MFRs even have drivers that are certified by microsoft, though those are often not the most recent ones. -Andy Cook Pardon the naive question, but I am trying to provide a recommendation for a small company. I'm used to Retro on the Mac and backup a network to DLT, so I am a bit ignorant here. The company needs a simple small non-networked backup solution (one single PC), for the least amount of money (I know I know...). Of course I am suggesting Retrospect, but I don't know of a suggestion for a backup device. They wanted to just use a zip, but I am at least recommending something more reliable than that. For their light backup needs, I am thinking of just going with a lowly DAT drive with a lot of redundancy. Can anyone recommend one for a Pentium 100 with 16Meg running 98SE? Does one typically attach such a thing to a parallel port? The machine already has 2 printers connected to 2 physical parallel ports. Can one gang parallel ports a la SCSI? Although the amount to be backed up is not large (one small hard drive, maybe 600MB), I am leaning toward DAT because the company personnel are very technology disinclined, and something like a CDR *will* scare them. Buying a Mac and backing up over a network is totally out of the question ("what's a network?"). They have an ancient tape drive that they used to run on Win3.1 before they were forced to upgrade to 98SE. I don't think they ever have known if they were -really- backing anything up, but they like the idea of tape because it is familiar to them. What they have may actually be a DAT drive (I haven't seen it yet), but they want to buy a new one. On Windows, does one have to install a separate driver for a backup drive from the drive's manufacturer, or does Retro alone take care of that? Stefan Jeglinski -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Dr. Andrew R. CookPhone (631) 344-4782 Brookhaven National Laboratory FAX (631) 344-5815 Chemistry Department, Bldg 555a, Rm 292 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Upton, NY 11973-5000 -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: retro for a small windows set-up
Are they not the cases that: If Retrospect supports the device, Dantz has a built-in driver for it, and no MFR driver is needed? If Retrospect does not support the device, then no MFR driver will enable Retrospect to use the device? Brad. -Original Message- From: Andrew Cook [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 1:13 PM To: retro-talk Subject: Re: retro for a small windows set-up Hi, For such a small backup, I think DAT might be a bit expensive. Just my $0.02. Also, I think that zip disks would be more reliable, but who knows - luckily(?) retrospect is very good at error checking, so you only need to worry about media failure after backup. For 600MB, why not look at a JAZ drive or an ORB drive? They are much cheaper than DAT, and backups would be much faster. Unless they plan on archiving a lot of backups in a file cabinet, a removable drive is a good way to go - but if you want to have 10 separate backup sets in a file cabinet, the cost goes up as disks are no where near as cheap as tapes. I suggest a JAZ or ORB rather than a ZIP to avoid frequent media swaps. I do this on 1 PC in my lab. I'd stick to SCSI or IDE if either is an option - using parallel ports is *way* slow. In general parallel ports cannot be daisy chained, except for junk like dongles, and Iomega Zip drives that are specially designed to go in between your computer and printer. I've heard some bad stories about how well this works, so I'd personally only do it as a last resort. For drivers, the answer is "it depends". Win 9x and NT have an assortment of standard drivers included, but often they are missing the ones you want, or the ones included are old or brain-dead. Usually it is a good idea to load the drive MFRs most recent drivers; some MFRs even have drivers that are certified by microsoft, though those are often not the most recent ones. -Andy Cook Pardon the naive question, but I am trying to provide a recommendation for a small company. I'm used to Retro on the Mac and backup a network to DLT, so I am a bit ignorant here. The company needs a simple small non-networked backup solution (one single PC), for the least amount of money (I know I know...). Of course I am suggesting Retrospect, but I don't know of a suggestion for a backup device. They wanted to just use a zip, but I am at least recommending something more reliable than that. For their light backup needs, I am thinking of just going with a lowly DAT drive with a lot of redundancy. Can anyone recommend one for a Pentium 100 with 16Meg running 98SE? Does one typically attach such a thing to a parallel port? The machine already has 2 printers connected to 2 physical parallel ports. Can one gang parallel ports a la SCSI? Although the amount to be backed up is not large (one small hard drive, maybe 600MB), I am leaning toward DAT because the company personnel are very technology disinclined, and something like a CDR *will* scare them. Buying a Mac and backing up over a network is totally out of the question ("what's a network?"). They have an ancient tape drive that they used to run on Win3.1 before they were forced to upgrade to 98SE. I don't think they ever have known if they were -really- backing anything up, but they like the idea of tape because it is familiar to them. What they have may actually be a DAT drive (I haven't seen it yet), but they want to buy a new one. On Windows, does one have to install a separate driver for a backup drive from the drive's manufacturer, or does Retro alone take care of that? Stefan Jeglinski -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Dr. Andrew R. CookPhone (631) 344-4782 Brookhaven National Laboratory FAX (631) 344-5815 Chemistry Department, Bldg 555a, Rm 292 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Upton, NY 11973-5000 -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: retro for a small windows set-up
Brad is correct. For each supported tape and CD-R device, Retrospect loads its own drivers. If Retrospect does not contain drivers for the drive, it is usually considered unsupported (or at least not yet supported), and no other additional drivers will allow Retrospect backups to the device. For removable disk drives, Retrospect relies on the drivers that are allowing the drive to be seen by the system. Regards, Matthew Tevenan Technical Support Specialist Dantz Development Corporation 925.253.3050 [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Thone, Bradley A (Swbt)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: "retro-talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 16:27:58 -0600 To: "'retro-talk'" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: retro for a small windows set-up Are they not the cases that: If Retrospect supports the device, Dantz has a built-in driver for it, and no MFR driver is needed? If Retrospect does not support the device, then no MFR driver will enable Retrospect to use the device? Brad. -Original Message- From: Andrew Cook [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 1999 1:13 PM To: retro-talk Subject: Re: retro for a small windows set-up Hi, For such a small backup, I think DAT might be a bit expensive. Just my $0.02. Also, I think that zip disks would be more reliable, but who knows - luckily(?) retrospect is very good at error checking, so you only need to worry about media failure after backup. For 600MB, why not look at a JAZ drive or an ORB drive? They are much cheaper than DAT, and backups would be much faster. Unless they plan on archiving a lot of backups in a file cabinet, a removable drive is a good way to go - but if you want to have 10 separate backup sets in a file cabinet, the cost goes up as disks are no where near as cheap as tapes. I suggest a JAZ or ORB rather than a ZIP to avoid frequent media swaps. I do this on 1 PC in my lab. I'd stick to SCSI or IDE if either is an option - using parallel ports is *way* slow. In general parallel ports cannot be daisy chained, except for junk like dongles, and Iomega Zip drives that are specially designed to go in between your computer and printer. I've heard some bad stories about how well this works, so I'd personally only do it as a last resort. For drivers, the answer is "it depends". Win 9x and NT have an assortment of standard drivers included, but often they are missing the ones you want, or the ones included are old or brain-dead. Usually it is a good idea to load the drive MFRs most recent drivers; some MFRs even have drivers that are certified by microsoft, though those are often not the most recent ones. -Andy Cook Pardon the naive question, but I am trying to provide a recommendation for a small company. I'm used to Retro on the Mac and backup a network to DLT, so I am a bit ignorant here. The company needs a simple small non-networked backup solution (one single PC), for the least amount of money (I know I know...). Of course I am suggesting Retrospect, but I don't know of a suggestion for a backup device. They wanted to just use a zip, but I am at least recommending something more reliable than that. For their light backup needs, I am thinking of just going with a lowly DAT drive with a lot of redundancy. Can anyone recommend one for a Pentium 100 with 16Meg running 98SE? Does one typically attach such a thing to a parallel port? The machine already has 2 printers connected to 2 physical parallel ports. Can one gang parallel ports a la SCSI? Although the amount to be backed up is not large (one small hard drive, maybe 600MB), I am leaning toward DAT because the company personnel are very technology disinclined, and something like a CDR *will* scare them. Buying a Mac and backing up over a network is totally out of the question ("what's a network?"). They have an ancient tape drive that they used to run on Win3.1 before they were forced to upgrade to 98SE. I don't think they ever have known if they were -really- backing anything up, but they like the idea of tape because it is familiar to them. What they have may actually be a DAT drive (I haven't seen it yet), but they want to buy a new one. On Windows, does one have to install a separate driver for a backup drive from the drive's manufacturer, or does Retro alone take care of that? Stefan Jeglinski -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Dr. Andrew R. CookPhone (631) 344-4782 Brookhaven National Laboratory FAX (631) 344-5815 Chemistry Department, Bldg 555a, Rm 292 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Upton, NY 11973-5000 --