Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!gryphon!mhnadel From: mhnadel@gryphon.COM (Miriam Nadel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: backup programs Message-ID: <19248@gryphon.COM> Date: 29 Aug 89 16:13:05 GMT References: <44566@bbn.COM> <1989Aug28.094152.12349@ziebmef.mef.org> Reply-To: mhnadel@gryphon.COM (Miriam Nadel) Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA Lines: 48 In article <1989Aug28.094152.12349@ziebmef.mef.org> stephen@ziebmef.mef.org (Stephen M. Dunn) writes: >In article <44566@bbn.COM> akhanna@BBN.COM () writes: >>Any recommendations for hard-disk backup programs, especially those >>that support incremental backup? > > One program to think about is PCTools PCBackup. I've been using this >program recently and have been quite satisfied by it. (I don't use it for >incremental backups, but it does do them ... I just can't comment >on how it works. > I've used it for incremental backups and found that it works quite well. There are a number of options on how to specify which files to back up. If you specify things like "everything that's changed since such and such a date" it's straightforward; I've seen people have problems trying to figure out how to backup just a few files (though it can be done.) > The versino I'm using doesn't do data compression, but the more recent >versions do. Be careful, though, the original release of version 5.0 (I >think it was 5.0) was kinda buggy ... they've fixed that now. > You need version 5.1 (or higher - I think they're up to 5.3) if you're using DOS 4.01. I would recommend getting it anyway because some of the other utilities that were added are nice. > It will format disks as it goes if necessary, formatting only the tracks >it needs rather than the whole disk. The next time, if it needs two >more tracks, it formats just those two. Its format isn't compatible with >DOS, so you have to use PCRestor to restore. > You can, however, use formatted diskettes and, depending on what parameters you specify, it won't reformat them. As for the format of the backed-up files, it was changed in PCTools 5.x so you have to use the matching version of PCRestore. > PCBackup achieves its speed by running the hard disk and the floppy >disk at the same time (i.e. concurrent DMA). You can turn off concurrent DMA, though I'm not really sure why you'd want to. Overall, PCTools is a nice package. I don't know anyone who has had significant trouble with it. It's also very reasonably priced. Miriam Nadel -- One of the 32% of Americans who like to take chances. mhnadel@gryphon.COM !gryphon!mhnadel nadel@aspen.aero.org