Recently, there was a post on this list about loss of data with VXA drives if the
power is cycled while a tape is in the drive. Some of the statements in that post were
incorrect. One very important correction: VXA tape drives DO have the capability to
recover data after a power loss
I am having troubles with my VXA tapes and thought I'd pass on some
signs, symptoms and a warning.
The warning: Don't powercycle the VXA drive with a tape in it. Ecrix
confirms that one is *likely* to destroy or lose some header
information and the tape *may* then be recognized by RS
I've reset DDS-* drives by holding down the eject button for 5
seconds to soft reset the device. Can the same be accomplished on
these drives It might save your tapes.
I am having troubles with my VXA tapes and thought I'd pass on some
signs, symptoms and a warning.
The warning: Don't
After I saw the series of postings on VXA tape capacity, I thought
it would help to get some info to you straight from us at Ecrix.
In this email, you'll find answers to these questions:
- Which files compress and which don't?
- How does Dantz software compression work with VXA?
- How does a VXA
Hi Backup People,
I have set up one of my clients with an Ecrix VXA tape drive using the above
media. It was my understanding that with the hardware compression built into
the drive turned on I would get the full 66 Gig capacity. My client has just
rung me to say that Retrospect is requesting
on 3/1/01 6:59 AM, Douglas K Wyman at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I have set up one of my clients with an Ecrix VXA tape drive using the above
media. It was my understanding that with the hardware compression built into
the drive turned on I would get the full 66 Gig capacity. My client has just
From: Rob Findlay [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Ecrix VXA 33/66 tapes with Retrospect
That's what I wanted to know
Thanks Garret. Thanks also to Douglas who suggested I upgrade the firmware.
Does anyone use software compression or is this a waste of time? I'm sure it
slows things down
://www.mactherapy.com
*
From: "Garret J. Cleversley" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: "retro-talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 11:04:19 -0500
To: retrospect [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Ecrix VXA 33/66 tapes with Retrospect
on 3/1/01 6:59
on 3/1/01 11:28 AM, Rob Findlay at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Does anyone use software compression or is this a waste of time? I'm sure it
slows things down even more.
It slows it down and is unneeded as hardware compression is built in.
Garret
on 3/1/01 8:04 AM, "Garret J. Cleversley" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I am very happy with this as graphics files are very compressible (sp?).
Garret
Eh? It really depends on the type of file you are compressing.
If the image (or any data for that matter) is already stored in a compressed
]
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
Of Daniel O'Donnell
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 2:12 PM
To: retro-talk
Subject: Re: Ecrix VXA 33/66 tapes with Retrospect
I was puzzled by the statement as well. The biggest files these days
tend to be motion graphics
At 18:48 +0800 3/1/01, Rob Findlay wrote:
Hi Backup People,
I have set up one of my clients with an Ecrix VXA tape drive using the above
media. It was my understanding that with the hardware compression built into
the drive turned on I would get the full 66 Gig capacity. My client has just
rung
At 1:41 PM -0600 3/1/01, Ben Liberman wrote:
1. make sure VXA drive has the latest firmware
2. make sure VXA drive has hardware compression turned on
3. make sure VXA drive favors capacity over speed
There are 2 settings, when configuring the VXA drive, that that affect tape
capacity
Same SCSI card, same cable,
same tapes (tried several), very similar computer, same OS,
same version of Retrospect; the only thing that seems to be
different is the location of the drive.
Is it possible that you don't have an up to date ATTO driver installed?
Pam
--
Title: Re: VXA vexations
re: 206 errors on Mac
Ecrix have revised the drive firmware to V2848
11/11/00in order to address some of these
problems.
Timing problems may vary from one system to another,
even with the same cable/adapter/terminator/drive
due to differences in the system clock and bus
2) Is the new drive now a native firewire implementation, or is it
just the old drive with the adaptor inside the box instead of outside
the box?
First, there are NO native FireWire storage devices on the market. All
current FireWire drives are using a bridge solution whether it is an
Ecrix have just announced a VXA drive with integrated firewire,
bundled with Retrospect.
http://www.ecrix.com/press/pr-2001-01-09.html
I made enquiries about buying it with a local dealer, and have been
offered the previous scsi-to-firewire VXA drive at a reduced price.
This raises some
Please to report that everything worked beautifully straight out of the box.
Adaptec card into G3, install driver, connect VXA, install Retrospect, drive
is recognised without need for VXA driver update. Install clients, all
machines came straight up. I left if plowing through a local 20 Gig
Retrospect, Ecrix VXA Drive 33/66, Adaptec 2906 PCI SCSI card on Blue G3
I have (almost) decided to recommend the above combination to a client as an
economical yet professional backup solution but I have a tiny misgiving
about the VXA drive working out of the box with the Adaptec card
On Son, 10. Dez 2000, 16:42:15 Uhr GMT Rob Findlay wrote:
Retrospect, Ecrix VXA Drive 33/66, Adaptec 2906 PCI SCSI card on
Blue G3
We've been using this combination for approx. 3 months but in a 9500
with an XLR8, G3/400 board.
We initially had a few problems, but they were quickly solved
it all
work in a limited timeframe.
Thanks again
Rob Findlay
on 11/12/00 2:45 AM, David Weeks, weeks.de at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Son, 10. Dez 2000, 16:42:15 Uhr GMT Rob Findlay wrote:
Retrospect, Ecrix VXA Drive 33/66, Adaptec 2906 PCI SCSI card on
Blue G3
We've been using
There are a few of quick things I would add about the VXA drives, having placed them
with
several clients in a number of different configurations with great success overall.
(One
example that has worked very nicely uses 2 VXA drives on a Beige G3 to back up PCs to
one
drive and Macs
Greetings, we have a new Ecrix VXA tape drive and Retrospect 5.15,
having various problems. Mostly "Lost communication with device" and
error -204. (No, I'm not trying to save the catalogue to the device nor
backup the desktop.) The drive will work with a "dumb" program like
On Don, 2. Nov 2000, 23:16:46 Uhr GMT David Weeks wrote:
a VXA drive which we are running on an Adaptec SCSI
card in a PPC 8500/200 with128MB RAM.
Backups run just fine and very fast, but after having backed up the entire
network (probably 40GB) the next incremental backup suddenly
On Fre, 3. Nov 2000, 2:26:50 Uhr GMT Chad S. Chelius wrote:
The first step I would take in troubleshooting this situation would be to
isolate the SCSI bus. Are there more than 1 SCSI device on the Adaptec
SCSI
bus? Is your VXA drive terminated properly? One other option would
situation. Pulling logfiles and giving them sense information
from the drive will help to resolve the situation. Some of us with
certain configurations have been working with Ecrix to resolve
problems with Retro Mac and VXA drives. They are working on firmware
updates to resolve specific problems
Hello All,
two weeks ago we bought a VXA drive which we are running on an Adaptec SCSI
card in a PPC 8500/200 with128MB RAM.
Backups run just fine and very fast, but after having backed up the entire
network (probably 40GB) the next incremental backup suddenly stops and asks
for the tape
Well,
I guess Friday afternoon was a bad time to ask this question--didn't
get any response, so i guess I'll try again this tuesday morning. Or
maybe its just time to RMA the drive...
Thanks,
Jim
Subject: Retro Mac And VXA Drive
From: "Jim Coefield" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 2
TED]
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 09:11:05 -0600
To: "retro-talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Retro Mac And VXA Drive
Well,
I guess Friday afternoon was a bad time to ask this question--didn't
get any response, so i guess I'll try again this tuesday morning
While these are excellent steps, the order can vary depending on
circumstances and resources.
New installation, for example, try device on another computer would
be up higher in the steps for me because I do have access to many
computers that I use for testing and it would be quick and easy
I just installed a VXA-1 drive on a G3 Mac for network backups, and am
seriously impressed by the speed of the thing. Some of the sources that were
backed up during my testing copied at speeds nearing 200MB/min! But, I'm
wondering about compares, because the compare speeds I've seen thus far
Could we get an update from Dantz and Ecrix on the VXA/Retro Mac
issue, as reported by MacIntouch, 10-20-00 (see below)?
The post on MacIntouch goes a long way to explaining some of the
problems I've been seeing with my VXA drive. If not for having just
finishing rebuilding my LAN
Hi All,
I'm running a VXA Auto Pak with a single drive - and I have the Retrospect
4.3 special build for the Auto Pak. Another question that I can't seem to
solve and Ecrix doesn't have any guesses for is that when I run my script,
the picker seems to choose random tapes. I erased all
...is Retrospect smart enough
to continue where it left off without rewinding the tape?
Yes, Retrospect is a damn good tool. As Irena said, the tape will be
rewined to check what tape it is. Then Retrospect will forward the tape to
put the new information *after* the old one.
It takes a
Hi Bob,
If you insert a VXA tape, the tape drive *must* get to the beginning of the
tape in order to read the header information. Retrospect has no way of
knowing what tape it's dealing with if the tape drive can't report the
information stored in the header.
Thanks,
Irena Solomon
Dantz Tech
If you are doing an incremental backup and you insert a VXA tape that
has not been used since the last backup, is Retrospect smart enough
to continue where it left off without rewinding the tape? Or is
rewinding necessary before and after every write session?
Bob Stern
Robert:
It's at www.ecrix.com/eval
The promotional offer is extended through October.
--Geoff Rainville, Ecrix.
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
Of Robert Schwalbe
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 5:04 PM
To: retro-talk
Subject: VXA
I'm running it on a beige G3 300MHz desktop. I wouldn't trust a Power
Computing system as a backup server...those are the Packard-Bell of the Mac
clone world.
Actually, most of the motherboards are the same as the Apple
equivalents. They changed other things like floppy drives and CD-ROM
The VXA isn't on a PPC as the backup server. The PPC is only a
workbench I'm using to test the drive. I'm trying to figure out why
the device is always blowing up in use with hardware sense code
failures or stuck tapes. This is the second drive we've gotten from
Ecrix.
The backup system
Yep. And most used the 7200 as the basis for that equivalency. And the
7200 was Apple's answer to Packard Bell.
lol.
The don't wanna-be Performa? 7200 as built was as stable as anything
else. It earned it's bad reputation based soley off of the fact that
it was hard to upgrade. For it's
on 9/26/00 9:00 PM, Todd Reed at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Has any one had any luck using the VXA tool on a Mac? My version just
bombs with some cryptic error that it can't find the target. Doesn't
crash, but doesn't find the drive either though the drive is listed
in the window.
Yeah
on 9/27/00 4:18 PM, Todd Reed at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Ecrix is telling me that the tool has problems running on older Macs.
I'm using a beige Power Computer 150 mhz system and the built-in SCSI.
The tool is noting that it's using the asynchronous SCSI manager.
Anyone having any luck
There was some talk on this list last week about the VXA Tool for Mac. It is
now live and posted on the ecrix.com site, in the support section.
VXATool for MAC is a MAC based utility used to configure your VXA-1 tape
drive. With VXATool, you can check and uplevel firmware, optimize the drive
Jon Gardner [EMAIL PROTECTED] slyly asked:
So, hey, Dantz folks, when can we start
beta-testing Retrospect X?
Well, since we're on 4.3 now, I think we should have Retrospect X (ten) by
about Spring 2009. Please note that this schedule will slip as necessary to
enforce reliability standards.
Has any one had any luck using the VXA tool on a Mac? My version just
bombs with some cryptic error that it can't find the target. Doesn't
crash, but doesn't find the drive either though the drive is listed
in the window.
Todd
On 9/26/00, Geoff Rainville emailed about "VXA Mac
Just saw this on the MacInTouch Ecrix Reader Report page
http://www.macintouch.com/ecrix.html
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 09:36:21 -0400
From: Matt Warren
Subject: More Ecrix notes
Hello Ric,
I have had similar experience with the VXA-1 drive. I run it with
Retrospect on a G3 that also runs
Just received a new Ecrix VXA-1 Tape Drive . Attached it via suppled
cable to Apple Macintosh BW G3 using stock Apple (Adaptec) 2940U2B
LVD SCSI PCI card (only external device attached on this card). Tape
Drive is terminated with supplied terminator.
Using Retrospect 4.3, Test Backups
Does anyone have experience with the VXA autoPAK system? If so, how has it
performed for you?
Thank you for any feedback. :-)
Sincerely,
Robert Cooper
MIS Director
Renaissance TTP, Inc.
Not exactly your answer, but Yes, I DO have an autopak. I'm TRYING to run
it off an Apple Mac G4 (OS
Well i was hoping to run it from a Beige G3! Sounds like their may be some
problems though.
Thank you for your input!
Does anyone have experience with the VXA autoPAK system? If so, how has it
performed for you?
Thank you for any feedback. :-)
Sincerely,
Robert Cooper
MIS
recommend using Retrospect 4.3 as it greatly enhances the performance of the
Ecrix VXA drive.
What I would suggest Robert is getting you in contact with someone at Ecrix
that could answer any preliminary questions as well as any technical
questions you may have concerning the stability
I've added the two OnStream drives (ADR50 and SC30) in the internal
SCSI configurations (wide connector if available). I've listed the
pricing I can get to keep the comparison prices consistent.
Steve Rothman, the Eliant 820 is an Exabyte drive utilizing an 8mm
helical scan tape. The VXA-1
, August 3, 2000 4:36 AM
To: retro-talk
Subject: RE: VXA drive (was DDS-3 vs DDS-4?)
I've added the two OnStream drives (ADR50 and SC30) in the internal
SCSI configurations (wide connector if available). I've listed the
pricing I can get to keep the comparison prices consistent.
Steve
Steve said:
My previous experience with DDS-2 was very unhappy -- too much
maintenance, too much downtime, too many ever-changing recommendations
about what brand of media to use, etc.
...(The only single-tape solution in my price range is VXA, which sounds
very nice, but there is NO WAY I
Hey Gowan...wanna buy a few hundred Syquest 200s? How about 5.25" MO's?
:)
- Original Message -
From: "Gowan Fenley" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "retro-talk" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 7:28 AM
Subject: VXA drive (was DDS-3 vs DDS-4?)
S
Could it be that DDS is to
Syquest as VXA is to Zip
Of course, if you want to look at single vendor proprietary platforms, you
don't have to look farther than Apple
Hey, you can always shoot for the lowest common denominator and invest in
Travan!
Le 02/08/2000 a 09:22 -0400 , Gowan Fenley ecrivait :
Hey, you can always shoot for the lowest common denominator and invest in
Travan!
And loose your data...
--
Xavier HUMBERT - Systemes et Reseaux | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
INJEP | [EMAIL
Mark said:
Gowan, what type of throughputs are you getting and what spec machine do
you use as a server?
Server is a Dell Poweredge 1300 with a single Pentium 3/450 and 256Mb RAM.
Throughput ranges from 171Mb/sec on local volumes down to 2Mb/sec on a fully
throttled (20% cpu time) remote mail
Oh yes - also compare after store is enabled.
-gf
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on 8/2/00 6:22 AM, Gowan Fenley at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Of course, if you want to look at single vendor proprietary platforms, you
don't have to look farther than Apple
...or Microsoft, or Intel, or AMD.
Sorry, had to get those "digs" in there somewhere ;-). Apple's not the only
(The only single-tape solution
in my price range is VXA, which sounds very nice, but there is NO WAY
I will go with a new, single-vendor solution...)
You really have to look at risk vs. cost in this case. You can get into a
VXA drive with a few tapes for $600-$700 and have an immediate 33
onupgrading
to DDS-4, but I've been taking a look at the VXA options since
reading about it on this list. My big question is: does VXA suffer
from the same "stretching tape" problem that Travan has, or is it
like DAT, which doesn't have that problem?
From a price standpoint, it looks li
Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
Of Steve Rothman
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 9:18 AM
To: retro-talk
Subject: Re: VXA drive (was DDS-3 vs DDS-4?)
(The only single-tape solution
in my price range is VXA, which sounds very nice, but there i
Steve said:
...In my particular case, I need to specify everything I need for a two year
time span (which in
my case means two drives plus all tapes and cleaning tapes, etc.) on a
single purchase order.
... I cannot tolerate the risk that my VXA drives may go bad a year from now
and that no one
cWarehouse for $800.
But let's talk about tape prices. It looks to me like the VXA 33/66
cartridge costs about $75 from Ecrix. It's not hard to find a DDS-3
12/24 cartridge for $18. So it looks like on a pure $/GB basis, VXA
media costs about 50% more than DDS-3 ($2.27/GB for VXA vs $1.50/GB
Larry Acosta Wong posted this very nice chart to this list about two weeks
ago, and I hope he won't mind me reposting it here again. His VXA media cost
is from his reseller, who is selling for less than we do on our website.
--geoff
---
Exabyte M2: 60GB, 12MB
om at $430 is a better deal than the bundle and
upgrading to the Server version for $398.
In the real world, my backup set is going to be some arbitrary size...
Actually, there are three different VXA tape capacities. Look here:
http://www.vxa.com/products/VXAtape-desc.html
Absolutely the m
I added cost/GB numbers to the end of this nice chart, hope my math is ok.
It looks like the media cost of VXA is about in the middle -- not
great, not a bargain.
DDS-3, which happens to be the format I am comparing to VXA, is tied
to be the second cheapest - the only format cheaper
lurking...
...Doug
OnStream
ADR50 : 25GB, 2MB/s, $700 ($50 media)
Exabyte M2: 60GB, 12MB/s, $3777 ($80 media)
Sony AIT-2: 50GB, 6MB/s, $3289 ($94 media)
DLT 8000 : 40GB, 6MB/s, $3915 ($64 media)
Sony AIT-1: 35GB, 3MB/s, $1913 ($88 media)
VXA-1 : 33GB, 3MB/s, $939 ($67 media)
DDS
On the website vxatape.com there is a .sit file, "Retro 4.1 Driver Update
VXA-1" to use with the mac.
I have Retrospect 4.2 so my guess is I don't need the driver update...??
Strange update btw, i never undersood how it worked...
thanx
So I got my VXA drive in one of those nice silent boxes. (Great Ecrix!!)
I have an old PPC mac with the SCSI-1 card on the motherboard. I also have
an external harddrive as I wish to keep on the computer...
The VXA drive came with that new SCSI interface and before I go cable
shopping, does
So I got my VXA drive in one of those nice silent boxes. (Great Ecrix!!)
I have an old PPC mac with the SCSI-1 card on the motherboard. I also have
an external harddrive as I wish to keep on the computer...
The VXA drive came with that new SCSI interface and before I go cable
shopping
Hello,
Based on Jon Gardner's post in response to my initial query about
a speed discrepancy between a DDS-2 drive on a slow SCSI external bus
and and the VXA drive on the Fast Internal bus (on a PowerTower Pro
225):
Any I/O bus, be it SCSI, network, or whatever, has a limit to the amount
Hello Jakob,
VXA is distributed in Sweden through Giga AB, in Stockholm. Their website is
www.gigatrading.se.
There are also several resellers in Sweden:
Desknet Datateknik AB (www.desknet.se), Logical Solutions AB (www.logical.se),
United Business Machines UBM AB (www.ubm.se).
For more
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
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
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
Short and sweet.. I have TWO VXA drives in an 8500 upgraded to a G3 with a
newertech card and 192 megs ram. I threw in an Adaptec 2940UW card set it
to fast scsi-10 and I get 150 megs/min across the network. Local is even
faster. I'm surprised you got that answer from Ecrix. If anything call
I am getting much better performance from my VXA1 drive now. Manually
disabling software compression (Retrospect is supposed to know if hardware
compression is available, but this does not work in my case), and replacing
a faulty ribbon cable in my external scsi case eliminated most of the
Retrospect is supposed to disable software compression in the presence
of hardware compression, even if it the box is checked. I will test and
see if speed increases without it.
I had the same (mis)understanding. I'm curious about what you found.
Exactly how is one supposed to
At 11:50 PM -0700 04/13/2000, jon * wrote:
You did read the spec's before you purchased it didn't you?
The best source of info on DDS-4 DAT that I've come across thus far
has been Sony's convoluted website.
Also you can always use the net to RTFM
Would be wonderful if I could only find the
In a message dated 4/2/00 9:54:01 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Curiously,
Retrospect is supposed to disable software compression in the presence
of hardware compression, even if it the box is checked. I will test and
see if speed increases without it.
I had the same (mis)understanding. I'm
Thanks for all the comments on VXA, it really sounds like the way to go, so
I'm going to be getting one when I get my new G4.
Thanks again,
Brian
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I have had a VXA drive here for about 3 months. Aside from some long
seek (finding the beginning of the tape) times if you crash Retrospect
in the middle of a backup and the fact that it is noisy compared to the
DDS3 drive I was using, It is very fast (~30% faster than DDS3) and
reliable (several
Has anyone any thoughts on Ecrix' VXA-1 drive? The PR and the reviews I've
read make it sound good, so I was wondering if anyone here's used it. I'm
going to upgrade my backup machine to a G4 and was probably going to get
another DAT when I ran across VXA.
Thanks,
Brian
I bought a VXA drive from Ecrix 2 days ago, very easy to set up with
Retrospect, very fast at backup. I replaced an overburdened DDS-3.
However, if for whatever reason Retrospect crashes during a backup it
can take as long as 12 hours to remove the tape from the drive in order
to start the backup
I've got all the individual posts dating back to 6/23/99.
Brad.
-Original Message-
From: Gene Kubicki [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2000 4:26 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: VXA drives
I bought a VXA drive from Ecrix 2 days ago, very easy to set up
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