Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!NIC.GAC.EDU!scott From: scott@NIC.GAC.EDU Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: backup of hard disk Message-ID: <9011120308.AA01631@next-8.gac.edu> Date: 12 Nov 90 03:08:09 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 52 madler@piglet.caltech.edu (Mark Adler) writes (in response to someone): >>> Actually, they COULD have gone with Insight's new 20Mb floppy 3.5 inch >>> drive! Yeah, the same type of floppies you use in your regular >>> drives, except a special coating I believe, AND compatible with >>> existing drives too, if memory serves. > >It is a different media, but interestingly, it is the *same* media required >by the 2.88M drives. It uses special hexagonal crystals of barium-oxides >(if memory serves) so as to have a highly regular structure for vertical >magnetization. And, as you mention, you can still use the media in old >drives, or new drives with old recording methods. > >I'd lay fairly good odds that NeXT will go the higher density drives when >the reliability has been established. How soon we forget (not you, Mark, but most everyone). What was one of the _biggest_ complaints about the original NeXT? Non-standard distribution media. Expensive, slow, ODs were not the "floppies-for- the-rest-of-us". I like them. They are very nice for archival storage. So are WORM drives. and WORMs are safer. And the latest batch are essentially write-once CD-ROMs. Back to floppies - 2.88M is the NeXT PC industry standard. This means that _everyone_ out there will support them - PC clones to Macs, right on to Suns, I'm sure. From talking with various NeXT and NeXT- related people, I think NeXT is fairly aware that they burned themselves with the optical drives. And I think they are concerned about making the same mistake again. I suspect that, at least with respect to distribution media, NeXT is going to follow the market from here on out. Which I think is just fine. 2.88M is not very large, but it works, and works with older formats. The higher density drives are all in about the same boat - they work with older formats, plus their own. The problem is that they _don't_ read 2.88M, yet. So they aren't the greatest. Also, 2.88M is a very small step forward, and thus should work well, because the manufacturers have plenty of experience with the current batch of drives. You can _always_ go out and grab a WORM or 20M 3.5" floppy and hang it off your scsi. Hopefully, we'll have people writing decent drivers for them, too (WORMs especially. Sure, they're scsi, but the write-onceness of them make for some interesting characteristics when imposing a file system over them). scott hess scott@gac.edu Independent NeXT Developer (Stuart) GAC Undergrad (Horrid. Simply Horrid. I mean the work!)