1237e1571e2f
tech



Hello Viktor - 

CA>> As it is now, I would avoid tape like the plague. 

VP> Yeah, since i got my first cdwriter i thrown the tape drive
VP> away and never regreted it :) 

I still have the Jumbo drive here with me (not installed at
present). I was trying to get some archived data from the
original tapes but the drive is acting up now and I just gave
up on it. I may try again at a later date. 

Have you been following the discussion about labels, humidity,
and sunlight corrupting the data on burned CDs? 

VP>>> Also, someone mentioned tar being able to work wihout a
VP>>> filesystem, actually almost any program under linux that
VP>>> stores it's stuff into one file can wotk directly with
VP>>> devices (w/o a FS) try ZIPing something to /dev/fd and it
VP>>> will work fine. 

CA>> I'm not so sure what the "no filesystem" is meant to
CA>> describe but I do know that unformatted media whether it
CA>> be tape, floppies, or a hard drive will not accept a write
CA>> operation under any OS I can think of. Burning files to a
CA>> CD is a possible exception as the 'format' and the file
CA>> are moved simultaneously to the media in one operation
CA>> unless it's a CDRW CD and in that case it must be
CA>> formatted prior to any write operations. 

CA>> MSDOS (and others) can also redirect output to a file
CA>> using stdout and read the file back using stdin once the
CA>> media has been formatted. 

VP> First of all formating operation and filesystems are not
VP> the same thing - under *nix anyway. You format a floppy
VP> with fdformat and then you create a filesystem on it with
VP> mke2fs/mkfat/whatever. And if the media is formated but
VP> there is no filesystem on it, programs can use the whole
VP> device as 1 big file, ie 

VP> if you would store a text file on a floppy directly then 

VP> vi /dev/fd 

VP> would allow you to edit it. 

VP> The filesystem is just a layer between a program and the
VP> real hardware which can be bypassed if need arises. 

OK, I have not done that using *nix and wasn't aware of the
differences. Now I understand a bit better. I will have to
experiment with that. ;-) 

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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