From: Victor Bien    
      
   Doug Bissett wrote:   
   > On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 04:21:49 UTC, "Dariusz Piatkowski"    
   >  wrote:   
   > ...snip...   
   >> Well...speaking of USB attached drives...how 'workable' are these solutions   
   in    
   >> our OS2 environment? I ask b/c with my current hardware getting a simple SD   
   card   
   >> reader used to be a problem. Eventually with the right combination of USB    
   >> drivers I was ok, but even then the transfer rate was just miserable.   
   >>   
   >> What can one expect these days?   
   >    
   > I am using a 1 TB Samsung Story Station USB disk formatted JFS, for    
   > backup. I also use RSYNC to do the backup. Most of the time, the    
   > backup, of my whole system (somewhere near 150 GB total) takes less    
   > than 10 minutes. Sometimes it takes up to 30 minutes, if I have been    
   > using the virtual systems (4 or 5 very large files). The speeed is not   
   > because the USB is fast, it is because RSYNC is very efficient at    
   > doing the job. Of course, the first pass, when it has to copy    
   > everything, takes quite a while.   
   >    
   > I also have another disk, with an eSata interface on it (as well as    
   > USB). It is a 640 GB disk, in a NexStar enclosure. ESata, of course,    
   > runs at SATA speeds, but does require a reboot to connect/disconnect    
   > the eSata  interface. I haven't used it for the backup, but I would    
   > expect it to do the job in less than 5 minutes.   
   >    
   > There is also the option of using a NAS drive. I don't have any    
   > experience with those, but I expect that the speed falls somewhere    
   > between the USB and eSata options (network speeds).   
   >    
   > You do, of course, need the latest USB support, and a USB 2.0    
   > controller, to make this work (the latest Dani driver does eSata, with   
   > no problem). The Samsung drive does work with USB 1.1, but you won't    
   > want to use it that way. You also need JFS for any kind of speed, and    
   > support for large disks. FAT32 is very slow (but works far more    
   > reliably, and faster, if you REM the CACHEF32.EXE line in CONFIG.SYS,    
   > and don't use the EA support feature). If you don't use EAs, you    
   > should use some sort of backup program (ZIP) to save the files (that    
   > also speeds it up because compressed files are also smaller files,    
   > most of the time). NTFS is not usable, because it doesn't really    
   > support writing (it might work, at your own risk). HPFS, and    
   > especially FAT16, are almost useless on large disks.   
   >    
   > IMO, an external hard disk (USB, NAS, eSata, or even another network    
   > connected system) is the only reasonable way to do a backup any more.    
   > Real hard disks are far more reliable (not to mention faster) than    
   > CDs, or DVDs, which are my second choice (Tape would be my second last   
   > choice, followed by floppies). Hard disks are, of course, somewhat    
   > delicate, but you can use a disk, designed for a laptop, in an    
   > enclosure, if you want to transport them regularly.   
   >    
   > Hope this helps...   
      
   It would be good if NTFS.ifs could be developed to full function.  Of course,   
   at present, there is only FAT and FAT32 filesystems with which data can be   
   swapped back and forth using OS/2 which is like going around with one's hand   
   tied behind one's back.  When I connect disks to my OS/2 I generally only   
   connect disks with OS/2 filesystems, mainly JFS.  Where EAs don't matter, I   
   transfer data back and forth to NTFS volumes over my network to my WinXP   
   computer.  I follow the Sun Microsystem adage: the network is the computer.  I   
   have my OS/2 computer networked with my WinXP computer to get the best of both   
   worlds.   
      
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