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From: fangchin@portia.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Trouble with 'tar', tape archiver.
Keywords: cpio, tar, PC-Tools
Message-ID: <1991Jan20.185445.20492@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 20 Jan 91 18:54:45 GMT
References: <1991Jan19.040951.2883@NCoast.ORG> <1991Jan19.212640.18364@portia.Stanford.EDU> <1991Jan20.070824.6205@jwt.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: AIR, Stanford University
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In article <1991Jan20.070824.6205@jwt.UUCP> john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) writes:
>
>"tar cv /directory" does multi-volume backups fine under ESIX and
>ISC.  Don't use all those other arguments.  Under ESIX, you need to
>edit /etc/default/tar to make the 1.2 meg floppy "archive0"; ISC
>2.0.2 ships with the 1.2 already set up as "archive0".
>-- 
Thanks John, I learnt something.  Now got an open question:
 
In my old MSDOS days, I used PC-Tools to do backup to and from floppies. This
piece of software uses DMA direct access for data transfer and speed is 
relatively tolerable (tolerable only! I didn't say it's fast).  Now I have
been using UNIX exclusively and have come to know several backup utilities
in the /usr/bin.   They are almost always MUCH slower than PC-Tools as far
as backing up to and from floppies is concerned and error prone (at least
on my machine, double check after a lengthy cpio session is a MUST!).  I 
wonder whether any one can give me a good reason why this is the case? 

Regards,

Chin Fang
Mechanical Engieering Department
Stanford University
fangchin@portia.stanford.edu