Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!fishpond!fnf
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Hard Drive backup programs
Message-ID: <138@fishpond.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jul 90 04:25:45 GMT
References: <23201@snow-white.udel.EDU> <1143@syteke.be>
Reply-To: fnf@fishpond.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Organization: Amiga Library Services
Lines: 33

In article <1143@syteke.be> jim@syteke.be (Jim Sanchez) writes:
>I too have been a faithful user of QB but agree with the QB author
>about not using compression.  Why - backup speed primarily.  My time
>is worth more than the costs of a few disks.  Now if compression were
>made optional with no loss of backup speed perhaps that would be ok
>but all the compression algorithms are computationally intensive and I
>suspect that backup/recovery time would more than double.  Think about
>it, is your time worth more than $5 per hour - mine sure is
>particuarly when the time is spent stuffing disks into my computer.

I used to feel the same way also, which is why BRU wasn't designed
to support compressed files from the beginning.  I figured it would
be too slow to be usable.  Finally, the marketing guys convinced me
that transparent file compression was something that we had to add to
the product, regardless of how slow it might be.  So it eventually
got put in, and much to my surprise, I find myself using it almost
ALL the time.

But then again, I hardly ever sit around twiddling my thumbs while
a backup is in progress, and the computer generally doesn't complain
about taking 2-3 times as long to do a backup.  With an even more
capable processor, the compression time almost becomes negligible
(on a fast 88000 system with 24Mb of ram, BRU can almost keep
a 1/4 inch tape streaming with compression turned on).  Of course,
it also helps to have something more capable than floppies to
back up to.  On my 2500 I just load up both 150Mb tape drives
and start a backup before going to bed ...  :-)

-Fred

-- 
# Fred Fish, 1835 E. Belmont Drive, Tempe, AZ 85284,  USA
# 1-602-491-0048               asuvax!mcdphx!fishpond!fnf