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From: kientzle@netcom.com
Subject: Floppy-based tape drive questions.
Message-ID: <kientzleD97Cru.3nw@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 20:26:17 GMT
Lines: 25
Sender: kientzle@netcom2.netcom.com
After upgrading to a much larger hard disk, I'm starting to get a tad
nervous about having no way to backup this system, so I'm looking to
buy a tape drive. However, I know next to nothing about
floppy-interface tape drives (which is what I'd almost certainly end
up buying).
So, here goes:
1) Are ``all'' floppy-interface tape drives essentially compatible?
If not, are there any clues to determining which ones will work with
FreeBSD?
2) Do some of the larger-capacity minicartridge drives work with FreeBSD?
(i.e., the new Conner 420Mb and 850Mb tape drives)
3) What's a good choice for backup software? What are the pros and cons
of `dump' vs. `tar'?
4) Is it reasonable to back up a DOS partition from within FreeBSD?
(In particular, is the pcfs file system reliable enough? I've heard
some bad rumours and had one or two inexplicably trashed DOS directories
myself.)
Thanks for any suggestions,
Tim Kientzle