Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 20 Jul 1998 00:00:05 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com>
To:        John R Tucker <tcs@mvn.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Tape Drive Needs
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.95.980719234317.23212C-100000@current1.whistle.com>
In-Reply-To: <01bdb399$1585cb60$537998ce@john>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
The first advice I have, is that if at all possible, use a SCSI based
device. THis is for several reasons. 
1/ they are in GENERAL more meant for professional use and often have
better standars of manufacture.
2/ a lot more testing goes into drivers for SCSI as that's what most of
the people use for important work..

the QIC stuff is old
the 'floppy tape' stuff is hard to keep reliable from a software point of
view as the hardware is not really designed to run in timesharing
environments.
the new ATAPI tapes are, well, new.
They haven't all worked out how to interpret the specs yet and our drivers
may not work with them all yet..
but if you use a SCSI device..

Everyone knows how to drive and manufacture a SCSI tape drive..
teh variables are less likely to bite you.

remember that with drives now in the 10s of GB, a 2GB tape drive is going
to be a liability pretty soon. 

maybe others can give more advice..


On Sun, 19 Jul 1998, John R Tucker wrote:

> I am an preparing to set up a system for shells and storage accounts. 
> Several other ISP's have reccomended yourselves and Redhat Linux. I am
> interested in the ease of setup and stability issues obviously since I
> will be the person onsite.

installation is pretty straight forward if you follow the documentation..
if you want first hand experience..
download the install floppy (yes, one floppy)
and boot a PC on it..
then read all the online docs.
if you don't do anything you can do this with your average window 95 PC
and unfortunatly not harm windows.. (i.e. the act of booting does not
touch the disk). The floppy knows how to download everything else needed
from a network connection or from a cdrom or from a ppp connection..

the floppy image is at ftp.freebsd.org
/pub/FreeBSD/2.2.6-RELEASE/floppies.

it's an IMAGE of a floppy so you don't just copy it to a dos floppy.

there are two tools in the 'tools' directory to write this image from a
dos aor windows machine..
rawrite.exe and fdimage.exe (hope the 2nd one is correct)
(apparently fdimage.exe is the prefered tool)

under unix use "dd"




>  A other individual has offered to perform
> the admin functions remotely.  Your section on tape drives (QIC)
> mentioned some of the different storage medias.  I have just downloaded
> the manual in work.
> 
> My questions are:
>     Can I use the newer 2G Colorado or Iomega Insiders with accelerator cards?
>     Can I schedule a nightly backup
>     Any user groups or newsgroups available
> 
> John Tucker
> Tucker Consulting
> tcs@mvn.net
> 
julian



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.3.95.980719234317.23212C-100000>