>> Well, apart from the general level of difficulty of getting any SCSI
>> device to work properly in the first place,
> 
> Not difficult at all, as long as the bus is properly terminated.  90% of 
> all SCSI issues are improperly terminated buses.  10% are probably 
> mismatched SCSI technologies (speed, etc).

And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of tape 
drive"?

>> it *is* quite annoying how
>> every single damn time BE has any kind of problem, it refuses to respond
>> to any user input until you forcibly terminate all its services. I don't
>> know *why* they bothered having a "cancel job" button; it never ever
>> works!
> 
> Well, if the problem is a hardware-related problem, that kinda makes 
> sense - the system has to wait for the hardware to respond.  I don't 
> think any backup program would work properly if there was a hardware 
> issue...

What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up 
completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray? 
[Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]

BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that might 
crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the tiniest thing 
goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any more...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:26:14 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

>>> Well, apart from the general level of difficulty of getting any SCSI
>>> device to work properly in the first place,
>> 
>> Not difficult at all, as long as the bus is properly terminated.  90%
>> of all SCSI issues are improperly terminated buses.  10% are probably
>> mismatched SCSI technologies (speed, etc).
> 
> And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of tape
> drive"?

Very few, as NT is out of support now. ;-)

>>> it *is* quite annoying how
>>> every single damn time BE has any kind of problem, it refuses to
>>> respond to any user input until you forcibly terminate all its
>>> services. I don't know *why* they bothered having a "cancel job"
>>> button; it never ever works!
>> 
>> Well, if the problem is a hardware-related problem, that kinda makes
>> sense - the system has to wait for the hardware to respond.  I don't
>> think any backup program would work properly if there was a hardware
>> issue...
> 
> What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up
> completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray?
> [Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]

I've seen that a few times, but it's been a while since I don't run 
Windows natively any more.

> BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that might
> crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the tiniest thing
> goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any more...

Well, if something goes wrong with backup software, arguably you WANT it 
to tell you and not complete its task.  After all, an incomplete backup 
isn't much use to anyone with a dead system.

Jim

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>> And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of tape
>> drive"?
> 
> Very few, as NT is out of support now. ;-)

Tell me about it...

>> What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up
>> completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray?
>> [Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]
> 
> I've seen that a few times, but it's been a while since I don't run 
> Windows natively any more.

Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

>> BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that might
>> crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the tiniest thing
>> goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any more...
> 
> Well, if something goes wrong with backup software, arguably you WANT it 
> to tell you and not complete its task.  After all, an incomplete backup 
> isn't much use to anyone with a dead system.

No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup 
operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the backup 
rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 escribió:
> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

Or dragging a file, trying to drop it on a specific folder, and 
accidentally moving the mouse over a mapped network drive on the folder 
tree. The other machine on the network is *turned off*. explorer hangs 
for like 30 seconds until it decides it waited too much for the network 
reply.

Meanwhile, I can't release the mouse button. If I release it, explorer 
will handle the mouse event when it unhangs, and I don't know what 
folder it will end up dropping it in...

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:49:35 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

>>> And how many of them are "Windows NT doesn't support this model of
>>> tape drive"?
>> 
>> Very few, as NT is out of support now. ;-)
> 
> Tell me about it...

Well, you see, NT is out of support now..... ;-)

>>> What, you mean like the way the entire Windows user shell locks up
>>> completely for several seconds every time you close the CD tray?
>>> [Seriously, have these people never *heard* of threading?!]
>> 
>> I've seen that a few times, but it's been a while since I don't run
>> Windows natively any more.
> 
> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire
> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the
> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

Yup.

>>> BE just seems to be very bad at handling any kind of problem that
>>> might crop up. If everything goes perfectly, BE is happy. If the
>>> tiniest thing goes wrong, it gets all upset and won't do anything any
>>> more...
>> 
>> Well, if something goes wrong with backup software, arguably you WANT
>> it to tell you and not complete its task.  After all, an incomplete
>> backup isn't much use to anyone with a dead system.
> 
> No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup
> operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the backup
> rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S

Well, yes, I can't argue that point. :-)

Jim

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*

Not for me. It just hour-glasses that one window. Maybe you didn't set 
the checkbox that says "run each window in a separate process"?

> No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup 
> operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the backup 
> rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S

That's why I like disk drives for backups better. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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>> Same thing happens if you accidentally click on A: by mistake. Entire 
>> Windows shell locks up for a few seconds while it repeatedly polls the 
>> device until it's quite sure there's no disk there. *sigh*
> 
> Not for me. It just hour-glasses that one window. Maybe you didn't set 
> the checkbox that says "run each window in a separate process"?

No, that's checked. It doesn't seem to make any noticable difference to 
anything though.

(My favourit part is when you open the "My Computer" window, and you 
have a CD in the drive. Now Windoze locks up while it spins up the 
CD-ROM drive to check what the volume label is... What, you can't 
*cache* that? Or multitask while you're waiting?? Damnit, AmigaDOS 
managed that trick 15 years ago...)

>> No, but when I give it a new tape and tell it to restart the backup 
>> operation, it would be damn useful if it would start *doing* the 
>> backup rather than just sitting there looking at me! :-S
> 
> That's why I like disk drives for backups better. :-)

And what on earth makes you think that using different backup hardware 
would solve a problem with a poorly designed software product?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> (My favourit part is when you open the "My Computer" window, and you 
> have a CD in the drive. Now Windoze locks up while it spins up the 
> CD-ROM drive to check what the volume label is... What, you can't 
> *cache* that?

Yeah, I will say the caching is rather poorly done for that stuff.

>> That's why I like disk drives for backups better. :-)
> 
> And what on earth makes you think that using different backup hardware 
> would solve a problem with a poorly designed software product?

Just experience. Everybody knows how to reset a hard drive with an 
error. Tape drives are all different and all flakey, IME.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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