Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!samsung!uunet!mcrware!mwca!bill From: bill@mwca.UUCP (Bill Sheppard) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: BackupST a must have!!! Message-ID: <1753@mwca.UUCP> Date: 26 Nov 90 19:20:16 GMT References: <639@fsucs.UUCP> <2792@laura.UUCP> <2806@laura.UUCP> <1749@mwca.UUCP> Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Santa Clara, CA Lines: 35 In article fred@prisma.cv.ruu.nl (Fred Appelman) writes: ->->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... -> Can you be more specific on this point. What would you like to have -> happen during this verify. Do everything you do in a restore, except -> writing the results to disk? Exactly - this would confirm that there were no media problems, as well as add some peace of mind that the indices are intact... ->-> 3) (If not already present) some error-correction data.. -> The error correcting data is minimal... The error correcting code would ideally allow the backup to be recovered even if a full sector is bad; of course, this would require some fairly extensive error correction code, and I'm certainly not the person who can suggest how it be done! PC Tools and Fastback (for MS-DOS) suggest that you can have up to eighty sectors bad and still fully recover a backup, so it can be done, but I don't know what the cost in speed/backup size would be. I suspect there are some freely-published papers in the academic/Usenet world which describe algorithms for doing this (similar to compression algorithms - perhaps the two can be combined). ->-- ->Fred J.R. Appelman, 3D Computer Vision, Utrecht Universi ->e-mail: fred@cv.ruu.nl or appelman@cs.unc.edu -- ################################################################################ # 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!#######