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From: bill@mwca.UUCP (Bill Sheppard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: BackupST a must have!!!
Message-ID: <1749@mwca.UUCP>
Date: 21 Nov 90 18:07:36 GMT
References: <EbCeZYT0BwwuJF1FAS@transarc.com> <639@fsucs.UUCP> <2792@laura.UUCP> <fred.658682337@prisma> <2806@laura.UUCP>
Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 36

In article <2806@laura.UUCP> klute@heike.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) writes:
>...Bottom line: The time to write data to disk is only one side of the coin.

>  Dipl.-Inform. Rainer Klute      klute@irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de

I agree, but disks are relatively cheap; I'd rather spend $10 for an extra
set of 10 disks and have the software write at full I/O speed than save the
$10 and have the backup take an extra 30 minutes while it saves me two disks
in compression...ideally, the compression scheme can quickly sense whether
the file is likely to be compressed much (ASCII, non-compressed graphics
data) and implement a quick, reasonably efficient algorithm (lempel-zev
would take too long to do on the fly). If the first few hundred bytes of
data are fairly random binary then skip compression...the 10-20% savings
aren't worth the time it takes to compress.

I used BackupST to back up my drive and I'm quite happy with the results.
I do have a couple of suggestions for enhancements:

	1)  An option to verify the backup would be nice (in the same menu as
		list/backup/restore) - slightly more security than having write verify
		on, and doesn't take much longer.

	2)	A screen after the backup listing total bytes backed up/restored,
		total files/folders, Mbytes/minute, and any other pertinent or
		interesting data.

	3)	(If not already present) some error-correction data added to the
		backup to allow recovery in the event of a few bad bytes on the
		backup media.

Please don't take these suggestions as criticism; the program is superb as is.
-- 
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#  Bill Sheppard  --  bills@microware.com  --  {uunet,sun}!mcrware!mwca!bill   #
#  Microware Systems Corporation  ---  OS-9: Seven generations beyond __/_!!   #
#######Opinions expressed are my own, though you'd be wise to adopt them!#######