Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!pyramid!nsc!csi!jwhitnel
From: jwhitnel@csi.UUCP (Jerry Whitnell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: backup utilities
Message-ID: <1402@csib.csi.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 88 00:30:10 GMT
References: <945@pbhyc.UUCP> <11540123@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Reply-To: jwhitnel@csib.UUCP (Jerry Whitnell)
Organization: Communications Solutions Inc., San Jose, Ca
Lines: 53

In article <11540123@hpsmtc1.HP.COM> kwallich@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (Ken Wallich) writes:
|
|Since the last round of postings got rather religious, and strongly
|favored DiskFit, I refrained from posting.  I currently use Fastback,
|and am more or less pleased with it.  At work here, we also have a copy
|of DiskFit, so I have used, and read the documentation on it too, and
|I find it to be an inferior product.  I will try to give some of the
|pro's and cons of each product here.

I have a couple of corrections to your pro's and con's.  These apply to
version 1.3 of the DataFrame version (1.4 of the release, I think).

|
|DiskFit Pros:
| ... [Delete for space]
|
|DiskFit Cons:
|o It writes over your old files.
    True.
|o You can't backup up a folder, or any other set of files individually.
    True, although I think they are changing this in the next version.
|o You can only restore an ENTIRE HARD DISK using diskfit.
   This is at the top of my list of things that I would like to see change
   in DiskFit too.
|o You are frequently asked to put in a prior disk when doing a backup.
   I've never had this happen to me.  It always asks for the disks in
   sequnce and never asked for the same one twice.  This includes both
   small and large (> 20 megabytes) backup.
|o Prompts you for EACH disk insertion, and requires a RESPONSE.  For a
|  100 disk backup, that's over 100 button presses (see previous con).
   It only requires a response the first time you add a disk to a set.  Once
   it gives the disk a title it knows about, DiskFit recognizes the disk
   as soon as you insert the disk.  It also autoformats disks that have
   not been previously formmated (if they have, DiskFit requires that
   you erase it by pressing a button).
|o Doesn't tell you how many disks it needs until AFTER you start your
|  backup (and even then, it's usually off by 1-3 disks).
   I've never seen it miss the count.  How large of a disk are you backing
   up (mine is a 40 mb DataFrame)?

One question for you about FastBack is how well does it handle losing
a backup disk.  I used to use HFS Backup (I think) until one of the backup
disks went bad and I found out my whole backup (some 20 odd disks at the time)
was useless.  Since FastBack uses its own format, I would be worried about
how it handled bad disks in the backup.  With DiskFit, if a disk goes bad,
you can hit the Missing button and it will request a new disk to replace
the bad one, and continue on as if nothing happened.

|Ken Wallich			*My views are mine, and mine alone*


Jerry Whitnell				Been through Hell?
Communication Solutions, Inc.		What did you bring back for me?
						- A. Brilliant