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From: bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: backup of hard disk
Message-ID: <25381@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 12 Nov 90 08:45:13 GMT
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In article <14566@cs.utexas.edu> osborn@cs.utexas.edu (John Howard Osborn)
writes:

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

I'm not sure I understand where you are coming from.  Certainly, for
the knowledeable user, there are alternatives to a straight NeXT
configuration.  I just don't understand the venom towards NeXT, when
they seem (to me at least) to have created a couple different
configurations, for a couple different purposes.

> (This is the "bus" you claim doesn't exist.)

I said bus, but it was muddy thinking.  The cpu/memory bus does not
show up, but the SCSI bus certainly does.  The NeXTStation is less
expandable, but it is certainly usefully expandable.

> Live with backing up to floppies.

Well, to each his own taste, I suppose.  I just find the idea of
switching fifty-odd floppies quite objectionable.  It will work.

> (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.)

Actually, the credit goes to the operating system, UNIX, not the
window manager, NeXTStep.  There is almost certainly a device driver
for the floppy, that lets you access it in "raw" mode.  This mode
makes the floppy look much like a magnetic tape.  I would expect dump
to work fine, spanning backups over diskettes, and prompting you when
the next one is needed.

> External SCSI add-ons.

Yes, you can turn a NeXTStation into a reasonable standalone.
Remember that with an external disk, in its own box, and an external
tape, in another box, you have just made a much less neat and
attractive system than both of the above in a NeXTCube.  You have also
considerably approached the price of a NeXTCube.  You certainly don't
have the same level of NeXT software support as you would get with a
cube (I am thinking of the optical options under the browser menu, and
the NeXT-provided disktab entries.)

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

Not that I was aware of.  I was thinking more along the lines of
multiple servers, each with their own floptical.  This redundancy can
be useful, to prevent loss of backup ability when your only floptical
drive goes bye-bye.  Tradeoffs like this depend on how big your
network is.

Thank you for catching my technical errors.  Since you seem to be
better informed as to third-party storage options than I am, perhaps I
could ask you to post a price comparison between between a NeXTCube,
and a fleshed-out NeXTStation.  I am quite curious myself to see how
much money saving is possible.


--
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."
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Brian Bartholomew	UUCP:       ...gatech!uflorida!mathlab.math.ufl.edu!bb
University of Florida	Internet:   bb@math.ufl.edu