Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!osborn
From: osborn@cs.utexas.edu (John Howard Osborn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: backup of hard disk
Message-ID: <14566@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 12 Nov 90 05:15:13 GMT
References: <13089@chaph.usc.edu> <25377@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 37

In article <> bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) writes:
>Then came the NeXTStation.  It is clearly designed to perform as a
>part of a bigger network.  There is enough hard drive space to make it
>boot (turn on, power up, and say hello) and swap (pretend that hard
>disk space is really memory space) locally, two things necessary for
>sanity and performance.  While it does not have a bus for connection
>of a backup device, nor chassis space to expand the hard drive, it is
>smaller and cuter, and costs a lot less than a NeXTCube.

OK.  Once more, this is your brain on NeXT...

The way you connect a backup device to a standalone NeXTstation is
either:  A.  Buy an external tape drive that plugs into the SCSI
             port.  (This is the "bus" you claim doesn't exist.)

         B.  Live with backing up to floppies.  (We assume at this
             point that dump under NeXTstep 2.0 is smart enough
             enough to handle floppies correctly.  Or that somebody
             will quickly write a backup utility.)

Check out the latest 3rd party products catalog (you do have one, right?)
for companies selling external tape drives.  As far as expanding the hard
drive, that same SCSI port (It is AMAZINGLY handy, isn't it?) will allow
you to plug in an external hard drive.

>The
>server also will have provisions like a floptical drive (or two or
>three) for backing up each machine in the network, including the
>NeXTStations.

The original NeXTcube could only handle a single optical drive.
Has this changed with the '040 board?

-
-John H. Osborn
-osborn@cs.utexas.edu