dvd-ram use on osr5
jack craig
i have been working on a driver for dvd-ram for openserver 5.0.[67].
i am interested to hear from anyone that might have an interest in
using dvd-ram on osr5. would a 4+GB/side media be of use for
backup or supplimentary storage? what other uses might be appealing?
general storage comments?
please note this is a personal query and not on behalf of caldera.
thanks in advance for your time to reply, jackc...
Tony Lawrence
I've been using DVD-RAM backup for myself and a few customers for
several months now. See http://pcunix.com/Reviews/dvdram.html
--
Tony Lawrence
SCO/Linux Support Tips, How-To's, Tests and more: http://pcunix.com
Bill Campbell
>hi openserver folks,
>
>i have been working on a driver for dvd-ram for openserver 5.0.[67].
>
>i am interested to hear from anyone that might have an interest in
>using dvd-ram on osr5. would a 4+GB/side media be of use for
>backup or supplimentary storage? what other uses might be appealing?
BackupEdge from Microlite is already using DVD-RAM. I think it works on
OpenServer. I know it works on Caldera's Linux as I'm running it on a
couple of eDesktop 2.4 systems here. One of these is a SCSI drive, the
other's ATAPI.
I think that they're doing this in a generic fashion rather than using a
special driver.
>general storage comments?
I'm planning on moving most of our systems over to DVD-RAM. It's much
faster than the DDS-2 (not to mention Travan), restoring data is
practically instantaneous using the edge FFR, the media's more reliable
than tape, and it's generally less expensive.
Another factor is that I can build 1U rack servers with DVD-RAM instead of
a CDROM drive giving me a real backup capability in very limited space.
Bill
--
INTERNET: bi...@Celestial.COM Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
UUCP: camco!bill PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX: (206) 232-9186 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676
URL: http://www.celestial.com/
More laws, less justice. -- Marcus Tulius Ciceroca (42 BD)
Jean-Pierre Radley
Since the latest release of BackupEDGE (01.02.00) already uses cdrecord
to write DVD-RAMs and since apparently a lot of people went out and
bought DVD-RAMs just to try them out during the beta testing of B/Edge
01.02.00, what's the missing piece that you're trying to supply?
--
JP
Tony Lawrence
File systems.
On Linux, you can create an actual file system to make full use of the
media. Not something I need, but I could see people using it.
Jean-Pierre Radley
| On Wed, Nov 28, 2001 at 11:49:44AM -0800, jack craig wrote:
| >hi openserver folks,
| >
| >i have been working on a driver for dvd-ram for openserver 5.0.[67].
| >
| >i am interested to hear from anyone that might have an interest in
| >using dvd-ram on osr5. would a 4+GB/side media be of use for
| >backup or supplimentary storage? what other uses might be appealing?
|
| BackupEdge from Microlite is already using DVD-RAM. I think it works on
| OpenServer. I know it works on Caldera's Linux as I'm running it on a
| couple of eDesktop 2.4 systems here. One of these is a SCSI drive, the
| other's ATAPI.
|
| I think that they're doing this in a generic fashion rather than using a
| special driver.
|
| >general storage comments?
|
| I'm planning on moving most of our systems over to DVD-RAM. It's much
| faster than the DDS-2 (not to mention Travan), restoring data is
| practically instantaneous using the edge FFR, the media's more reliable
| than tape, and it's generally less expensive.
|
| Another factor is that I can build 1U rack servers with DVD-RAM instead of
| a CDROM drive giving me a real backup capability in very limited space.
If I understand things correctly, the largest DVD-RAM capacity these days
is 4.6Gb on one side of a DVD-RAM disk, and 4.6 on the other; so even if
hardware compression lets you back up, say, 18Gb of hard drives, you
still have to sit there while the Backup runs and flip the disk after the
first 4.6Gb.
--
JP
D. Thomas Podnar
>> JP said (in two separate messages)...
: Since the latest release of BackupEDGE (01.02.00) already uses cdrecord
: to write DVD-RAMs...
Actually, cdrecord has nothing to do with the way BackupEDGE
writes to DVD-RAM media.
; If I understand things correctly, the largest DVD-RAM capacity these days
; is 4.6Gb on one side of a DVD-RAM disk, and 4.6 on the other; so even if
; hardware compression lets you back up, say, 18Gb of hard drives, you
; still have to sit there while the Backup runs and flip the disk after the
; first 4.6Gb.
;
; --
; JP
Current generation DVD-RAM media is CALLED 4.7GB.
In reality, it has 4,472,832 1K data blocks. This translates to
4,580,179,968 bytes, or 4,368 Gigabytes (1K=1024 bytes), of usable
storage space.
With software compression you'll get more data per disk, and as
JP said, with double sided media you can manually flip it over and
use the other side.
I can quote the statistics on older 2.6GB media if anyone wants it.
We are STRONG proponents of using devices large enough to allow
entire systems to be backed up on one piece of media.
Fortunately, for MANY businesses, servers actually need less space than
Windows PCs, and the only reason many people get 9GB or larger hard
drives in the server is that that's the smallest they can still buy.
For these businesses, DVD-RAM is an elegant solution, as...
o It writes at 50GB to 80GB/min, not unreasonable for unattended
backups.
o Its media is rated at 100,000 re-writes, compared to the 100 to
200 uses before most people replace tapes.
o It can replace BOTH the CD-ROM drive and the tape drive in
many instances (the operating system actually sees the device
as a CDROM, and it reads and boots from CDROMs just fine). This
can make it cheaper than the cost of a tape drive plus a CDROM
drive, and will take up less space and power.
o Files and directories can be retrieved incredibly quickly.
If you are using DDS3, DDS4 or other technologies because of larger
space requirements or higher performance (reduced backup windows),
they are worth the extra money.
BackupEDGE technology treats the DVD-RAM device like a tape drive
for writing, like a hard drive for instant access, and like a CD-ROM
drive for booting from RecoverEDGE (each backup can be bootable).
You might noe even need a floppy drive.
Jack Craig is talking about a device driver that would allow the
user to make an HTFS (or I imagine any other OpenServer supported)
filesystem on the DVD-RAM media and mount it like you'd mount a hard
drive or a floppy disk, with performance that's somewhere between the
two. Or, you could probably write directly to the raw device node.
That opens up a different realm of possibilities for DVD-RAM
and that's what Jack needs the feedback on. Hit him with it.
Best Regards,
Tom
---
D. Thomas Podnar - President t...@microlite.com
Microlite Corporation 724-375-6711 Voice
2315 Mill Street 724-375-6908 Fax
Aliquippa PA 15001-2228 888-257-3343 Toll Free Sales
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Makers of |
| BackupEDGE SS - Data Archiving Software For UNIX & Linux |
| RecoverEDGE - Network-Enabled Smart Disaster Recovery |
| for Linux, Open UNIX 8, UnixWare 7.1, |
| and OpenServer 5.0.x. |
|http://www.microlite.com ftp://ftp.microlite.com|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Now With Tape, Autochanger, CD-R/RW and DVD-RAM Support |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Bill Vermillion
> o It writes at 50GB to 80GB/min, not unreasonable for unattended
> backups.
Hm. That's quite a bit faster than the fast HD's on an Ultra160
interface. Isn't 50MB to 80MB/min a more reasonable figure?
Bill Campbell
...
>If I understand things correctly, the largest DVD-RAM capacity these days
>is 4.6Gb on one side of a DVD-RAM disk, and 4.6 on the other; so even if
>hardware compression lets you back up, say, 18Gb of hard drives, you
>still have to sit there while the Backup runs and flip the disk after the
>first 4.6Gb.
That's certainly true, but...
The DVD-RAM backups with Edge go at better than 75MB/minute which is about
1/2 the speeds I've seen with SCSI DDS-2 DAT backups (we won't talk about
Travans will we :-). The cost of a SCSI DVD-RAM drive is about $350.00,
and the life of the media is a lot better than the three DDS-2 tapes I can
buy for the price of one DVD-RAM.
The largest systems I've backed up here with DVD-RAM will fit on a single
disk so I can't say for sure how Edge handles multi-disk backups with their
indexing program and selective restore. If they do it properly, it's got
to be a lot faster than extracting individual files from tape.
The backup programs I've written allow me to make master backup of
individual hard disks or directories, with incrementals covering everthing
that's changed since the last master(s). This allows me to logically
organize the masters so that they fit on single media in most cases (large
databases are generally extremely compressible so aren't a problem).
I just finished printing the entire Edge manual so that I can see how to
best fit their DVD-RAM and indexing into our backup scheme. Right now I'm
using the DVD-RAMS with their standard full master run nightly on my
desktop system where everything fits so I don't have to be very
sophisticated -- other than remembering to leave media in the drive at
night.
Bill
--
INTERNET: bi...@Celestial.COM Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
UUCP: camco!bill PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX: (206) 232-9186 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676
URL: http://www.celestial.com/
``People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It
does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is
carried out by government.''
Tony Lawrence
Yes. Or you could have two drives and use one as the overflow device.
The drives aren't badly priced at all..
Tony Lawrence
I find about 3 GB an hour..
D. Thomas Podnar
: ...
: >is 4.6Gb on one side of a DVD-RAM disk, and 4.6 on the other; so even if
: >hardware compression lets you back up, say, 18Gb of hard drives, you
: >still have to sit there while the Backup runs and flip the disk after the
: >first 4.6Gb.
: That's certainly true, but...
:
: The DVD-RAM backups with Edge go at better than 75MB/minute which is about
: 1/2 the speeds I've seen with SCSI DDS-2 DAT backups (we won't talk about
: Travans will we :-). The cost of a SCSI DVD-RAM drive is about $350.00,
: and the life of the media is a lot better than the three DDS-2 tapes I can
: buy for the price of one DVD-RAM.
:
: The largest systems I've backed up here with DVD-RAM will fit on a single
: disk so I can't say for sure how Edge handles multi-disk backups with their
: indexing program and selective restore. If they do it properly, it's got
: to be a lot faster than extracting individual files from tape.
BackupEDGE SS handles multi-volume DVD-RAM backups wonderfully
(make sure you have build 4 or later of 01.02.00).
Indexing is currently disabled if backups exceed 1 volume.
: The backup programs I've written allow me to make master backup of
: individual hard disks or directories, with incrementals covering everthing
: that's changed since the last master(s). This allows me to logically
: organize the masters so that they fit on single media in most cases (large
: databases are generally extremely compressible so aren't a problem).
You may want to examine how easily your scripts fit into the new
Backup Domains in 01.02.00. They may fit righ in and save you
some work.
Tom Podnar
Microlite
: I just finished printing the entire Edge manual so that I can see how to
D. Thomas Podnar
: D. Thomas Podnar <t...@microlite.com> wrote:
: >Allow me to clarify a few things...
:
: > o It writes at 50GB to 80GB/min, not unreasonable for unattended
: > backups.
:
: Hm. That's quite a bit faster than the fast HD's on an Ultra160
: interface. Isn't 50MB to 80MB/min a more reasonable figure?
Bad fingers. BAD BAD BAD.
Yes, 50-80MB/min is correct.
Tom Podnar
Microlite
- bill -
we maintain a user with a large database of patient information. When
the patient leaves the practice they would like to burn a cdrom/dvd-ram
with the clinical and accounting data and just file that in case the
patient returns or there is a request for information. It would
therefore be nice to be able to write a standard format dvd disk that
could be read from windows (yech) or from OS5.
--
-bill-
Technical Service Systems - bi...@TechServSys-garbage.com
Tony Lawrence
Though they'd have to have a dvd reader- a dvd-ram can read a cd, but
not vice-versa.
- bill -
>
> - bill - wrote:
...
we maintain a user with a large database of patient information. When
> > the patient leaves the practice they would like to burn a cdrom/dvd-ram
> > with the clinical and accounting data and just file that in case the
> > patient returns or there is a request for information. It would
> > therefore be nice to be able to write a standard format dvd disk that
> > could be read from windows (yech) or from OS5.
>
> Though they'd have to have a dvd reader- a dvd-ram can read a cd, but
> not vice-versa.
>
> --
> Tony Lawrence
> SCO/Linux Support Tips, How-To's, Tests and more: http://pcunix.com
good point.
We would not ship out the disk, but might (in a pinch) need to read it
locally from a windows machine. But they don't have DVD readers, yet.
Does your crystal ball predict the replacement of cd readers with dvd
readers in the next years ?
Tony Lawrence
Some Windows machines have dvd drives now. It's not common though and
my crystal ball runs on TRSDOS so is pretty much useless. Your problem
would be that you'd have no way to create the Windows accessible file
system from your SCO Unix box- no way at all now (no block driver
support), and even if that were added, I don't think the fs is anything
standard- I could be wrong there; I haven't platyed with these things
under Windows.
Bob Meyers
"- bill -" <bi...@TechServsys-take-this-out.com> wrote in message
news:3c07740b$0$35568$2c3e...@news.voyager.net...
> good point.
> We would not ship out the disk, but might (in a pinch) need to read it
> locally from a windows machine. But they don't have DVD readers, yet.
> Does your crystal ball predict the replacement of cd readers with dvd
> readers in the next years ?
> --
"Forum members considered ROM requirements and the cost of re-engineering
and manufacturing. Next-generation DVD-ROM drives will be able to read RAM
discs by incorporating simple/economical firmware modifications to their
present designs. The newest DVD-ROM drives already incorporate this
compatibility. Drive manufacturers which produce over 94% of the DVD-ROM
drives delivered have announced that they have or will soon provide DVD-RAM
read-capable drives."
Matt Schalit
>Tony Lawrence wrote:
>>
>> - bill - wrote:
>>...
>> Though they'd have to have a dvd reader- a dvd-ram can read a cd, but
>> not vice-versa.
>>
>good point.
>We would not ship out the disk, but might (in a pinch) need to read it
>locally from a windows machine. But they don't have DVD readers, yet.
>Does your crystal ball predict the replacement of cd readers with dvd
>readers in the next years ?
For a computer, it costs more to make a cd-rom player these days
than a dvd player due to economies of scale. There's a tremendous
demand for DVD players in computers. Cd-roms are being sold, in
the meantime, to clear out the inventories while still charging the
clueless a lot of extra money for the DVD. You can buy a dvd drive
for peanuts ($50), and a sigma designs dvd decoder is about the same
amount, if you want to watch movies :-)
Future DVD players will have the DVD-Multi certification that's a new
part of the DVD Forum's standards. That specifies that a dvd player
with the DVD-Multi logo is guaranteed to be able to read DVD-ROM,
DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM.
Settop players won't be able to read DVD-ROM. Writers will be able
to write DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM. It's not clear what's going
to happen with DVD+RW.
The DVD Forum's DVD-Multi spec was derived from the Optical Storage
Technology Association's DVD-Multi2 from December, 1999. That one
specified how DVD players would read CD-Audio, CD-ROM, CD-R, and CDRW.
I figure those will be included, though it may take three lasers to
do it all.
Regards,
Matthew