NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/comp/sys/amiga/applicat/8514

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-10 | 1.6 KB

Xref: sparky comp.sys.amiga.applications:8514 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:19337
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications,comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.programming
Path: sparky!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!gphs.vuw.ac.nz!tribble
From: [e-mail] (John Matthews)
Subject: Tape Backups, Quarterback
Nntp-Posting-Host: erebus.gphs.vuw.ac.nz
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Institute of Geophysics, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ
Keywords: Tape, Quarterback
Sender: [e-mail] (News Admin)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 23:55:58 GMT
Lines: 20

I managed a while ago to get a ArchiveData Viper 2150S  150Mb Tape Drive.
Since then, however, I have not had a lot of luck in using it as a backup device.
I can read from it quite well though.

Through much experimentation, mainly with BTNTape2.1, I have managed to identify the problem (sort of).

I can write to the drive with BTNTape2.1, as long as I write only 1 block at a time. The drive has an internal 32K buffer, but this still results in very slow backups (as the tape must rewind a bit every 32K) and the only software that currently uses BTNTape2.1 is TAR. No commercial software seems to allow for the writing of 1 block at a time, or deals with this drive specifically.


I am currently looking for alternatives, these are what I have so far:

1. Someone else may know of software that works with this drive
2. I could write a patch which intercepts WRITEs to the tape device, and splits them into block writes
3. I could write my own backup software which uses BTNTape2.1

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.


John Matthews,
  [e-mail]