Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!manuel!ccadfa!prolix!dac
From: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Backups taking longer & longer
Message-ID: <19116006.ARN1bee@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au>
Date: 30 Apr 91 06:44:54 GMT
References: <5642@mindlink.bc.ca>
Reply-To: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Organization: More like Mis~, really.
Lines: 42


{Sigh. Oh for a working mail feed!}

In article <5642@mindlink.bc.ca>, Ed Meyer writes:

> Now, however, with all partitions being 70-90 % full, and after using the
> SyQuest for about 14 months, I have noticed that backup times are taking longer
> -- this is not unexpected.  What is unexpected, though, is that as the copying
> progresses, there is an increasing period of "quiet" between diskcopy reading
> from the 105 and writing onto the SyQuest.  This is true whether doing a non-
> or verify diskcopy.

How fragmented is your Quantum?  When a disk is 90% full, things tend to slow
down somewhat. Following fileblocks around a fragmented disk takes up time.

Of course, I might be peeing in your ear, because you already make sure that
your HD is nicely defragged ... 

I had a strange reproducable error occur yesterday on my ageing Miniscribe
71Mb (ST506 and slow as a wet week) - I had just cleaned off some 20 megs of
text archives, and thought I would have a peek at the disk fragmentation with
Quarterback Tools. On doing so, it showed me that my drive wasn't too bad [a
mere 361 'fragments' - when I did a check of the disk for integrity, it
claimed that A SEVERE ERROR WAS ENCOUNTERED ON FILE <TEXT.ANIM>. This was
quite a shock to me. I duly tried to examine the file, and my OTHER HD came up
with a READ/WRITE error trying to load up SID. I rebooted, and everything was
fine - loaded up Dpaint, loaded in text.anim, and it worked fine.

Repeating this sequence of events produced the same result, except instead of
rebooting when loading SID, I clicked the 'retry' option, and SID loaded.
Strangeness like this is something that I don't need.

Note: I'm only idly wasting time here, and specifically not saying that there
is anything wrong with Quarterback Tools - I have found QBT to be reliable and
useful, indeed, the 'Nortons Utilities' for the Amiga. Indespensible.

Dac
--
David Andrew Clayton. // _l _  _|Normally a resident at dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au    
Canberra, Australia.\X/ (_](_l(_|But, due to circumstances beyond my control, I
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\|don't RECEIVE mail at the moment. You could try
prolix!dac%eyrie@labtam.oz.au   or  ...!munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac |Post.Am