Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!peregrine!ccicpg!cci632!esm
From: esm@cci632.UUCP (Eric Masur)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Seeking Advice On CMS Tape Backup
Message-ID: <40099@cci632.UUCP>
Date: 24 Sep 90 19:25:35 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Computer Consoles Inc. An STC Company, Rochester NY
Lines: 29


I am seriously considering purchasing a Colorado Memory Systems 60/40MB (intrnl)
Tape Drive to backup the hard drives on my 386SX.  Does anyone have experience 
with this unit that they could share?  (Prices seem to be around $250.00)
(This unit pretends to be a floppy drive and hangs off the floppy controller.)

I am interested ONLY in backing up my system to prevent against loss in the
event of a crash.  I will not be using the tape for archiving data and I am 
not interested in using the tape as a means of transfering data to or from
other systems.  Speed is nice, but not as important to me as low price and
reliability.  I am interested in doing mostly full backups as opposed to 
incrementals since the configuration of my system is somewhat dynamic and in 
the event of a hard disk failure, I want to restore my drives to exactly what 
they were like IMMEDIATELY before the crash. (ie I don't want to have to go
back and redelete old files that were needlessly restored.)

I've got an ST277R (RLL 65MB) and an ST138R (RLL 32 MB) with an Adaptec 
controller.  I use DOS 3.3 and partition my 65MB drive (using FDISK) into a 
30MB and a 35MB partition. 

Some questions I would love to have answered:

1)  Are people happy with the units performance and reliability? 

2)  Can backups span multiple tapes?

3)  How flexible is the backup software that is included?

4)  Comments on using the floppy controller vs a dedicated controller?