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DD8
plus Version 2.20 - September 1998
BACKING UP TO SCSI TAPE DRIVES
As disks become full or projects get finished, you need some way to backup the material for safe
keeping so that, if needs be, you can come back to it at a later date. You could, of course, simply
copy it all off to another disk of some form but this can be an expensive way of doing it.
A more cost effective method is to backup to some form of tape medium and the DD8 allows you
to backup the contents of your disk(s) to SCSI tape drives via the SCSI-A connection. This
function is accessed by pressing BACKUP (F4) in the DISK UTILITIES page.
In the main UTILITIES page, when you press BACKUP (F4), you will see this screen::
The Disk key (F1) is used to move the cursor to the DISK ID field. The Tape key (F2) is used to
move the cursor to the SCSI Tape ID field.
Disk ID
This selects the disk that will be backed up to the SCSI tape drive.
SCSI Tape ID
This selects the SCSI ID of the tape drive.
The RESTORE key (F4 or F5) will take you to pages where you can reload data previously
backed up to SCSI tapes.
When you press the BACKUP key (F3), you will be taken to this screen:
Before we look at the actual functions, an understanding of SCSI tape drives is in order.
SCSI tape drives can be regarded as slow, linear disk drives. A single tape can contain several
backups. However, whereas a disk drive has just the one directory where information relating to
the data on the tape is stored, a tape drive has a directory for each backup on the tape.
Of course, you may find it easier to keep track of backups by backing up each disk/project to its
own SCSI tape (i.e. one tape will contain only the contents for one backup) but you may, if you
wish, make several backups to one tape and then restore them individually by name if you
prefer.
FORMATTING A TAPE FOR BACKUP
Before you can perform a backup, you must first format the tape so that the tape is set up to
receive files and digital audio data. This is done using the FORMAT key.
To format the tape, first select the appropriate SCSI ID for the tape drive in the SCSI BACKUP
FUNCTION page. As with disk drives, the tape drive must not share the same SCSI ID as any
other SCSI device on the buss. Once selected, go to the SCSI BACKUP page and press the
format key(F3). You will see this screen:
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