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From: tim@j.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Comments on FASTBACK disk backup utility?
Message-ID: <3237@j.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: Fri, 13-Feb-87 11:12:02 EST
Article-I.D.: j.3237
Posted: Fri Feb 13 11:12:02 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Feb-87 22:42:52 EST
References: <4394@curly.ucla-cs.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: tim@j.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Timothy Lange)
Organization: PC Learning Resource Center, Purdue University
Lines: 30

I have been using FastBack for some time now, it is very fast, in fact
when it is backing up small files (less than 2K), the slowest part of
the process is the hard disk (65ms Seagate).  It formats the disk on the
fly using its own format.  This allows more information to be put on the
disk and also gives you the good error recovery.  The amount put on the
disk depends on the number of files, it seems not to have minimum
cluster size.  I have gotten an average of 500K on a floppy for some of
my backups.

It is not copy protected, but does test your system at installation
time.  It checks for what kind of floppy drives and how many, "tests"
your DMA chip and your CPU.  I have heard and seen test failure reports
on early PC's due to a bug in the 8088 CPU.  I have also heard that
sometimes the installer reports a bad DMA when it is actually the CPU.

Using DS/DD disks it works fine, I have tried using some SS/DD disks
that have worked with no bad spots formatted by DOS and they usually
fail under FastBack.  It is quite picky about disks.  If you are in the
middle of a backup and it gets a disk error, it will abort and you will
have to start the backup over.  A pain if you are on disk 88!  

It retails for $179, but have seen it in several mail order listings for
under $100.
-- 
Timothy Lange
PC Learning Resource Center
Purdue University Computing Center
West Lafayette, IN  47907
317-494-1787
tim@j.cc.purdue.edu