RE: Cost of tape drives

        Subject:        Re: Cost of tape drives

        Neil (you little stickler, you!),

        In a message dated 98-01-19 21:25:43 EST, you write:

        > Hmmm - your example of backing up a 4GB PC with a 1MB Zip
drive would
        >  certainly be a little difficult.  However, as a regular
diskette holds
        >  1.44MB I presume you meant a 1GB Zip drive ?   :-)

        Yes, I meant Gb.  Still a pain in the kiester when a properly
sized tape drive
        will do the whole thing in the middle of the night without
operator
        intervention...

                Yes, and you can get a properly sized tape drive for a
properly sized cheque - that's check to you guys south of the border :-)


        >  I wouldn't say a backup option was not viable simply because
you would
        >  have to change media 4 times to save the entire system.
        >  And backing up a small AS/400 (4GB or 8GB) on the standard
1/4" tape
        >  than can hold about 3.5GB also could not be classified as
being not
        >  viable.  Now if you wanted to add the word 'Unattended" to
the backup
        >  description, then I would have to agree.

        The problem is, if the backup _isn't_ unattended, it often
doesn't happen.
        Heck, over the holidays we lost a week's worth of eight
developers' work due
        to a head crash on our development machine.  Someone had taken
our source
        library out of BRMS' save list because it "took too long to back
up", DESPITE
        the fact that the backup was unattended.  Duhhhhh! 

                I presume this individual is now unemployed and living
in a van down by the river ?   :-)

         Maybe it's slow because,
        uh, THAT'S WHERE ALL THE STUFF _IS_!  Point being, backup needs
to be
        unattended in order for it to happen at all in a large number of
cases.
        Agreed !

        Just human nature and...

        JMHO,

        Dean Asmussen



... Neil Palmer                                     AS/400~~~~~      
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