Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: After the stack: Some questions about Retrospect
Message-ID: <29536@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 25 Apr 89 20:27:55 GMT
References: <7901@fluke.COM> <29471@apple.Apple.COM> <7913@fluke.COM>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 27

>Excellent -- and I assume that this directory structure is listed when
>you're browsing through a Retrospect archive?

Yes.

>One last question: can multiple Retrospect archives be placed on a single
>tape (in particular, a 40MB cartridge tape?)

No. It'll use the entire media for a given archive. The reason why you don't
want to put multiple archives on a tape is that you need to be able to add
to the archive later -- and if there were another archive beyond it on the
tape, you couldn't do that.

>OK, *one* more question, Chuq: how does the file compression option stand
>up?  Does it slow down the archiving process much, compared to
>non-compressed mode?  How does the % compressed stand up, compared to (say)
>StuffIt?  [If you're under non-disclosure oath about stuff like this, forget
>I asked, and thanks for the info so far...]

The file compression is Lempel-Ziv, so the compression factors are
essentially the same as Stuffit. The compression algorithms have been
optimized, so they're claiming 10-15% faster compression times than using
StuffIt (which my testing seems to agree with). PLUS you can run a
compressed archive across multiple floppies without having to split it up
manually. In fact, it'll archive a single large file across multiple disks,
compressed (and optionally encrypted), and put it back together again
without you having to do anything special at all.