Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!rochester!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hpsmtc1!kwallich
From: kwallich@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (Ken Wallich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: backup utilities
Message-ID: <11540133@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Date: 11 Feb 88 17:34:38 GMT
References: <945@pbhyc.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 64


(I'm posting this for Josh Hodas - KW)

According to the docs sent with the fastback 1.02 upgrade I just recieved,
it now prompts for a new clean disk if it encounters an error while attempting
a write.

Also, Could you please post the following to the net for me, our system will
not send news.

- - - - 

   I have been using fastback for the mac on my mac ii since its release.  (I
was a  long time user of the equivalent pc version).  At the time I bought it
I also bought diskfit 1.3 (? perhaps 1.4, whichever is current).  I used both
and have since filed away diskfit for two reasons.


	1)  The inability to selectively archive and restore makes it almost
	    completely useless to me.  In particular, I generally do not want
	    to back up all my stackware each increment, but since hypercard 
	    marks them as changed, diskfit insists that I do.  (the choice of
	    excluding folders with []'s is no option since this would preclude
	    backing up those stacks that had changed.

	    This problem also effects those applications that modify their
	    resource forks to store minor bits of state information.

	    In general, Fastback's system for selecting files offers enormous
	    flexibility, with very little investment of time.

	2)  (This is a point that I am really suprised no-one has mentioned)
	    THough the reviews seem to indicate that they operate at roughly
	    the same speed, this is only true if you are using pre-formatted 
	    disks.  If not, then diskfit must go through a full format cycle
	    that nearly doubles the back-up time.  Fastback (like the pc ver-
	    sion) formats on the fly, (ie each track is formatted as it is
	    filled with data) and thus it operates at almost identical speed
	    on formatted or unformatted disks.

	    Also, though diskfit claims multi-finder compatibility, I found
	    that if it brough up its prompt for the next disk while it was in 
	    the background, then diskfit and the system would compete for 
            the right to format the disk, leading to a rather confusing seq-
	    uence of dialog boxes.

All in all I am an extremely satisfied user of fastback.

Josh Hodas   (hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu)
4223 Pine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

(215) 222-7112 (Home)
(215) 898-9515 (School)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Insert your favorite disclaimer here.)

  	"The interplay between generality and individuality, deduction	
	 and construction, logic and imagination -- this is the profound
         essence of live mathematics."

			--Richard Courant

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