Retrospect and Ecrix VXA
Hi all, Several messages have been posted here regarding poor VXA performance with Retrospect. I'd like to clear them up here. First of all, I personally use one of these drives, and it rocks. It replaced an aging DDS-2 drive, and I absolutely love the VXA. I use it with a SuperMac S900 clone (basically a 9500), connected to the mediocre logic-board SCSI, and I still get over 135 MB/min locally. Two more systems are also backed up as clients, but that's only over 10baseT, so we won't go there. ;-) In DantzLab, running Retrospect 4.1 on a Power Macintosh 9650/350 with Mac OS 8.5.1, SCSI Manager 4.3, and hardware compression enabled, with a striped RAID 0 hard drive and the tape drive on separate SCSI-2 cards, we regularly achieved an average write speed of 283 MB/min to the VXA-1 drive. To get the best performance out of a VXA drive, be sure you turn OFF software compression. Yes, Retrospect should ignore software compression when hardware compression is available, but we missed that in our driver for the VXA. We will be fixing this soon, but the workaround is to just turn off software compression. We will also be adding sync/wide SCSI negotiation to Retrospect in the very near future. We have been relying on SCSI cards to perform this function, but many (such as Adaptec cards) are no longer doing this. When no sync/wide test is performed, the attached tape drive, be it DDS-4, DLT, AIT, VXA, etc., is assumed to be of lower performance than is really the case. The VXA is a great drive, and it gets my highest personal recommendation. With Retrospect configured properly, anyone would be happy with this drive's performance. Eric Ullman Dantz Development -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
List Archives?
I've have horrible error 519 problems with 2 beige G3's now (REV. A) and I was wondering if there are any list archives that I could search for answers to what might be happening. Paul Fabris IS Manager Market Connections Inc. 25 Sheppard Ave. West, Toronto ON M2N 6S6 (416) 223-2250 x224 www.markcon.com -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: List Archives?
I was wondering if there are any list archives that I could search Never mind. Just saw the answer at the bottom of my own message. Please forgive the newbie! PF -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: List Archives?
Paul, I'd recommend first consulting Dantz Technical Note 415, "Troubleshooting Error 519." It's a comprehensive troubleshooting guide to this error, located at http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=tn415 Then, if you're still having problems, please contact Dantz Technical Support. Regards, Matthew Tevenan Technical Support Specialist Dantz Development Corporation 925.253.3050 [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Retrospect) Reply-To: "retro-talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 13:17:50 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: List Archives? I've have horrible error 519 problems with 2 beige G3's now (REV. A) and I was wondering if there are any list archives that I could search for answers to what might be happening. Paul Fabris IS Manager Market Connections Inc. 25 Sheppard Ave. West, Toronto ON M2N 6S6 (416) 223-2250 x224 www.markcon.com -- -- 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: Retrospect and Ecrix VXA
Eric Ullman notes: First of all, I personally use one of these drives, and it rocks. It replaced an aging DDS-2 drive, and I absolutely love the VXA. I use it with a SuperMac S900 clone (basically a 9500), connected to the mediocre logic-board SCSI, and I still get over 135 MB/min locally. Two more systems are also backed up as clients, but that's only over 10baseT, so we won't go there. ;-) I concur. I have an S900 with the Umax E100 card (100Base-T plus fast/wide SCSI, check Small Dog, PowerOn, Other World for possible supplies at $40 or so). My local backup is in the same ranged. Network backup peaks at about 60 MB/min over 10Base-T, so I'm exploring a few 100Base-T switch options, which should allow faster network backup (we've sometimes passed 300 MB/min at work). At that point I'll probably move the VXA drive to my SuperMac J700, which functions primarily as a server for my email lists. One thing I really appreciate about Retrospect is the ease of moving it to another computer, which I've done several times at work. Dan Knight, information systems manager [EMAIL PROTECTED] Baker Book House Company http://www.bakerbooks.com 6030 East Fulton 616-676-9185 x146 Ada, Michigan 49301 fax 616-676-9573 - Macintosh: Love bug resistant, always Y2K ready -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Mac CPU upgrades?
Jon Gardner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Not to get into a brand war (we use some Newer cards too), but we've had very good experiences with Sonnet cards. They tend to be less expensive than Newer's, not to mention the fact that they had Mac OS 9 support several months before Newer. We have had good luck with Sonnet cards also. My main home machine had a Sonnet card and it always worked well. That machine is now running my FileMaker Pro server without problems. -- Mark -- Mark Collien - Manager, Information Technology National Center on Education and the Economy [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.ncee.org/ 202-783-3668 -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Retrospect and Ecrix VXA
a SuperMac S900 clone (basically a 9500), connected to the mediocre logic-board SCSI, and I still get over 135 MB/min locally. Two more As one of the original posters with slow performance (50 MB/min max locally) then from the above I can only conclude there is some sort of hardware problem with our drive or our computer (Power Tower Pro 225). Since we get _slower_ performance from the VXA drive on the _fast internal_ bus than we do from an old DDS-2 drive on the mediocre external bus. Removing everything from the external bus does not change the performance of an internal drive - VXA backup. The VXA drive is in the middle of the internal terminated Fast SCSI-2 bus. Software compression is off. (i.e. I did NOT check the "allow software compression" box... so I presume this means software compression is off and hardware is on?. The only places I see to set this is when the original back up set is created and within the individual backup server script. Any other place I might be missing to turn off software compression? Thanks for any and all help/advice, -Greg Morin -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Request] Progress bar on client machines
HI there, I have just installed Retro in our network to backup our servers and the directors Powerbook G3 500's. Everything works perfectly and the powerbook backups over Airport are a network admins dream!. Good job Guys! What I did want to know though, is it possible to show a progress bar on the clients as they are getting backed up? I have had to set the client backups to run in the for ground because I ran into the problem of the laptops being taken offsite while the the backups were in progress. The only problem is, there is no way to find out how much time is remain on the backup without looking at the server itself. Is there any way around this? Regards Matthew Healey -- Matthew Healey Western Orthopaedic Clinic [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 (08) 9423 8844 Fax: +61 (08) 9381 8866 -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [Request] Progress bar on client machines
That's a good request, Matthew. Thanks. One thing to note: it's OK if the backup is interrupted. The next time the notebook shows up on the network, Retrospect only copies what it doesn't already have. If the user wants to see if the backup is still happening (not how much is left -- sorry), s/he can open the client control panel to see if it's "In Use". Again, thanks. Craig HI there, I have just installed Retro in our network to backup our servers and the directors Powerbook G3 500's. Everything works perfectly and the powerbook backups over Airport are a network admins dream!. Good job Guys! What I did want to know though, is it possible to show a progress bar on the clients as they are getting backed up? I have had to set the client backups to run in the for ground because I ran into the problem of the laptops being taken offsite while the the backups were in progress. The only problem is, there is no way to find out how much time is remain on the backup without looking at the server itself. Is there any way around this? Regards Matthew Healey -- Matthew Healey Western Orthopaedic Clinic [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 (08) 9423 8844 Fax: +61 (08) 9381 8866 -- -- 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: [Request] Progress bar on client machines
on 1/6/2000 1:09 PM, Craig Isaacs at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's a good request, Matthew. Thanks. One thing to note: it's OK if the backup is interrupted. The next time the notebook shows up on the network, Retrospect only copies what it doesn't already have. If the user wants to see if the backup is still happening (not how much is left -- sorry), s/he can open the client control panel to see if it's "In Use". Cheers for that. I am trying to make the backups as "Management Proof" as possible. insert rim shot here Oh while I am at it, I would like to stick my hand up for client program (at least) for MacOS X Server. We use MOSX for our Mac Manager server and ASIP for the file server. We only use ASIP because Retrospect is not available for MOSX :P Regards Matthew Healey -- Matthew Healey Western Orthopaedic Clinic [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 (08) 9423 8844 Fax: +61 (08) 9381 8866 -- -- To subscribe:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives:http://list.working-dogs.com/lists/retro-talk/ Problems?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
