OS2 World.Com Forum

Subject  :  External tape drive
Author  :  hausmaus
Date  :  13 Dec, 2005 on 01:27
I'm working on getting an external Colorado 350 Jumbo drive to backup my BBS system (please, no comments about "newer technology"-there's good reasons why I'm doing this and I've researched all of my alternatives). I've got both IBM Dualstor 3.0 and Back Again/2 Enterprise Edition here, as well as Seagate Backup Executive and Arcadia Backup.

What I'm wondering if any of those would support an external parallel port tape drive...would any of you who've more experience with OS/2 know these things?

I'm running Warp 4.52, if that means anything.

TIA,
Sean


Subject  :  Re:External tape drive
Author  :  calmssea calmssea@gmail.com
Date  :  13 Dec, 2005 on 09:15
Well, I have never had experience with parallel devices, but I am quite sure BA/2 supports parallel port devices with their own device drivers.

BA/2 gives quite nice result for backups, as I am using it on my production system. (Though i am using a DDS3 SCSI device)


hausmaus (13 Dec, 2005 01:27):
I'm working on getting an external Colorado 350 Jumbo drive to backup my BBS system (please, no comments about "newer technology"-there's good reasons why I'm doing this and I've researched all of my alternatives). I've got both IBM Dualstor 3.0 and Back Again/2 Enterprise Edition here, as well as Seagate Backup Executive and Arcadia Backup.

What I'm wondering if any of those would support an external parallel port tape drive...would any of you who've more experience with OS/2 know these things?

I'm running Warp 4.52, if that means anything.

TIA,
Sean



Subject  :  Re:External tape drive
Author  :  warpcafe warpcafe@yahoo.de
Date  :  13 Dec, 2005 on 11:17
Hausmaus,

I had Dualstor some years ago and was quite satisfied with it... at least as long as my QIC-drive (floppy port) was sufficient for the amount of data. IIRC Dualstor only supports QIC drives on the floppy port - I might be wrong with that, but I'm pretty sure that external (parallel) drives were not supported.
I later changed to SCSI tape drives and I'm still having a Tandberg tape drive and a Colorado [something] tape drive (although I rarely use them anymore thanks to DVD burners) that I used with BA/2 until that piece of software was unable to deal with tapes created by itself. That happened when a "disaster recovery" was required. Well, thanks then - I junked the registered copy of BA/2 and changed to Cristies PCBax (BA/2 is dead in matters of development and support anyway AFAIK).
That Cristie software has all I need, even more (like parallel tape support) is much more reliable on the very same devices and works like a charm.

Okay, in your case this ain't no help as you might not want to buy another backup software with what you've already got. I think BA/2 (although I don't like it) seems to be the best choice in your situation. As for the parallel port support, I agree that BA/2 should have a driver on its own for that.

Greetings
Thomas


Subject  :  Re:External tape drive
Author  :  hausmaus
Date  :  13 Dec, 2005 on 20:46
I tried looking for Cristie's (http://www.pcbax.com), but the page never loaded. Unfortunately, BA/2, Arcadia and Seagate refused to install (probably because the drive is bigger than 2.1GB). So I'm left with Dualstor for right now. I thought I had Fastback around here somewhere, but I'll have to dig to find it... :>

Thanks for the information, both of you-I appreciate it.

Later,
Sean


Subject  :  Re:External tape drive
Author  :  warpcafe warpcafe@yahoo.de
Date  :  14 Dec, 2005 on 13:18

hausmaus (13 Dec, 2005 20:46):
I tried looking for Cristie's (http://www.pcbax.com), but the page never loaded.

Sean,
give a try to http://www.cristie.co.uk/index.php?id=26
...that should do it. It's the UK site...

Greetings
Thomas


Subject  :  Re:External tape drive
Author  :  hausmaus
Date  :  15 Dec, 2005 on 23:28
It's what I was afraid of-no more OS/2 version *sigh*.

Subject  :  Re:External tape drive
Author  :  hausmaus
Date  :  21 Dec, 2005 on 15:23
I did find BackMaster, which lists direct support for the drive, and checked out the company's website, but it seems that they're no longer answering emails. Too bad-looks like a good program. I'm still waiting for the drive to appear at my front door too...

Subject  :  Re:External tape drive
Author  :  hausmaus
Date  :  21 Dec, 2005 on 22:58
Wonders never cease-I heard from MSR Development! I'm waiting to hear back, but I may still be able to register BackMaster...more on this as it happens.

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