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By James E. Powell
Backing up the data on a small LAN or a big workstation just got a little easier. The TapeStor 8000 tape backup system from Seagate Technology can back up 8GB of compressed data on a single Travan-4 tape cartridge.
The drive fits into a 3.5- or 5.25-inch bay and, to complete the installation, you only have to set jumpers to indicate its SCSI ID and whether it terminates the SCSI chain. This easy task was made more difficult by the tiny size of the jumpers, which were hard to manipulate.
The system ships with Arcada Software's Backup Exec for NT. For my tests, I substituted Arcada's Windows 95 version, Backup 1.1, which is very similar. The software recognized the drive without a hitch.
Seagate claims the drive can back up at up to 30MB per minute without data compression, and up to 60MB per minute with data compression of two to one. In my tests, the backup speeds didn't match Seagate's claims, but they were still very good. It took slightly less than 33 minutes to back up about 800MB with compression on and the verify option off. That's an impressive rate of about 25MB per minute.
The 8000 incorporates Seagate's Fast Sense, which detects the host system's fastest supported data-transfer rate and then chooses a transfer speed of 300KB, 450KB or 600KB per second.
One 3M Travan-4 cartridge is included with the drive. The drive is also read/write compatible with QIC-Wide QIC-3080 and QIC-3095 formats, and read compatible with QIC-80, QIC-3010 and QIC-3020 formats. There are three versions of the drive: internal SCSI, internal IDE and external SCSI.
The TapeStor 8000's price and performance give you two more reasons to back up and safeguard your data.
--Info File--
Seagate TapeStor 8000
Price: Under $400
Pros: Performance
Cons: Jumpers for SCSI ID and termination settings
Platforms: Windows 95, NT
Seagate Technology
800-626-6637, 714-641-1230
WinMag Box Score 3.5
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