Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!rex!uflorida!bikini!bb From: bb@sandbar.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: I found out how to backup to floppies Message-ID: Date: 4 Jan 91 03:19:37 GMT References: <25Z7u1w163w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca> Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU Organization: /cis/lightning0/bb/.organization Lines: 29 In-reply-to: lclarke@questor.wimsey.bc.ca's message of 3 Jan 91 10:56:36 GMT In article <25Z7u1w163w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca> lclarke@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Lawrence Clarke) writes: > /dev/rfd0a is (r) removable (fd0) 1st floppy drive (a) 1st partition > /dev/rsd0a is (r) removable (sd0) 1st SCSI drive (a) 1st partition The "r" here stands for "raw", not removable. It allows a program to access a disk partition or other storage device as a large flat stream of bytes that you can seek through with a very simple program, instead of the more efficient block-oriented access that implies knowledge of the disk layout and geometry. (Isn't UNIX neat?) > If anyone has any other ideas, please respond ... Ok, I will :-) I am glad to see someone taking the effort to learn about the supplied UNIX utilities. A smart program like dump comes into its own when you wish to make incremental backups; these are where you only save the files that have changed since some date or other criteria. -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!mathlab.math.ufl.edu!bb University of Florida Internet: bb@math.ufl.edu