Backup tape drive

[Michael C]

I've bought a sony AIT backup drive and installed the software that came
with it. I'm not sure if it's just me but I find backup software very
un-intuitive. Does anyone know of a good cheap simple backup program that I
can just specify what to backup and when? The ability to put in a tape and
just have a look at what's on it would be a great feature too, instead of
having to jump through all the hoops that most backup programs require.

Thanks in advance,
Michael

 

[old jon]

I've bought a sony AIT backup drive and installed the software that came
with it. I'm not sure if it's just me but I find backup software very
un-intuitive. Does anyone know of a good cheap simple backup program that
I can just specify what to backup and when? The ability to put in a tape
and just have a look at what's on it would be a great feature too, instead
of having to jump through all the hoops that most backup programs require.

Thanks in advance,
Michael

Hi M.
You could try `Syncback` (free) it maintains logs, in HTML fomat in it`s
home folder.
best wishes..OJ

 

[Jan Alter]

Hi,

I happen to use Dantz Retrospect, but only because it came with the
external Maxtor One Touch Drive. I enjoy the fact that it will make a base
backup and then automatically make incrementals each day at a predetermined
time. However, it's not particularly intuitive software. I went to a
magazine that I subscribe to called Smart Computing. They did a review of
some backup software packages in February and liked Backup Now because of
its intuitiveness and apparently easy interface. Sorry, it's not particulaly
cheap, $80-full price, but it's something for you to compare other products
to. Here's the website. Also, though it doesn't specifically say tape drives
I believe it will back up to them since it mentions that it will back up to
external media sources. If you take an interest in it you could call or
write them.
http://www.ntius.com/default.asp

SC tested 3 software products: Simple Backup, Handy Backup and Backup Now.


Here's Smart Computing's review of Backup Now. I only post because one has
to be a subscriber to the magazine to get onto their website.

Smart Computing 2/05

Backup NOW! is the most expensive program in our test group, and for your
money, you get an extremely easy-to-use backup tool. Backup NOW! features
the EasySteps interface, a three-step procedure for defining your backups:
In step 1, you define what data you want to back up, restore, or verify. In
step 2, you specify where to back up, restore, or verify the data. In step
3, you specify how you want to back up or restore the data.

Backup NOW!'s design directly supports this intuitive approach to backup.
The left side of the window has a set of large, numbered buttons
representing the steps in the EasySteps process. The right side of the
window holds a pane showing whatever information is relevant to the step
you're on.

Setting up a basic backup is a simple process of working through each of the
steps and following the instructions that appear in the right-hand pane.
When you complete one step, you click the button for the next, and Backup
NOW! tells you what to do. Once you complete the three steps, you click the
Start button and let the program do the rest.

By default, Backup NOW! verifies and compresses the backup file it creates.
If you want to run regularly scheduled backups, click Schedule on the left
side of the window and the program will display a straightforward dialog box
for setting it up. And because Backup NOW! features automatic media spanning
(it can write to multiple diskettes and optical discs) and can write to
unformatted CD-Rs, you don't have to worry about running out of space on the
backup CD or about having a formatted disk on hand when you need it.

So what's not to like about Backup NOW!? Aside from the price, there are a
few minor issues. The program doesn't have explicit settings for backing up
your email, Desktop, Favorites, or the Windows Registry. You need to figure
out where those files are yourself if you want to back them up. Also, to do
a drive image backup, you need to jump out of the main Backup NOW! program
to the companion Drive Image Backup/Restore program.

Although it isn't the perfect backup solution, Backup NOW! delivers the best
mix of ease and power among the products we tested here.

 

[Michael C]

Hi,

I happen to use Dantz Retrospect, but only because it came with the
external Maxtor One Touch Drive. I enjoy the fact that it will make a base
backup and then automatically make incrementals each day at a
predetermined time. However, it's not particularly intuitive software.

That's an understatement. I'm trying to get a backup solution going for
2 of my customers as well as myself at home, all to tape. With a second hand
DDS3 drive costing less than $100 these days there's probably a lot of home
users trying to do the same thing.

I've done a bit of a search in google groups and it seems that many people
want to do the same thing as me, which is to just specify what to backup and
when. I'm not interested in incremental backups, catalogs, media names etc.
All I want to do is backup the same files every night to whatever tape is in
the drive. If I leave the same tape in the drive all week that's my problem.

SC tested 3 software products: Simple Backup, Handy Backup and Backup Now.

Thanks for the tip but it looks like none of them support tapes. Maybe they
do but there was no mention of it.

Michael

 

[Michael C]

I've done a bit of a search in google groups and it seems that many people
want to do the same thing as me, which is to just specify what to backup
and when. I'm not interested in incremental backups, catalogs, media names
etc. All I want to do is backup the same files every night to whatever
tape is in the drive. If I leave the same tape in the drive all week
that's my problem.

I little more research and I think I've found what seems to be the perfect
solution (hopefully this isn't one of those cases where it becomes apparent
after a while that it is not perfect). All I need to do with ntbackup is add
the command line switch /UM to the end of the command line in task
scheduler. So far this seems to work no matter what tape I put in the drive.

I found a tip that created a batch file to do this but I'm not sure what
this tip does that using /UM doesn't?

http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBE/tip2200/rh2265.htm

Michael