David Cooley wrote:
>
> At 12:33 PM 10/21/1999 -0500, Stephen Waters wrote:
> >i've found that software compression (with our cheesy seagate backup
> >exec s/w anyway..) compresses better than hardware because it is able to
> >reorganize the data in a more compressible manner rather than the drive
> >just compressing whatever hits the buffer.
> >we average just under 18GB per tape w/ full compression, although i have
> >seen instances where it would hit 20GB. it's extremely data dependant i
> >would expect.
>
> I have an Exabyte 8505XL on an adaptec 2940UW. It is set to hardware
> compression, but if the SW compression is better, do I just need to turn HW
> compression on the drive off to use SW compression?
depends on the drive and software combination i think... neither of our
external Seagate or HP DAT24 drives has dip switches (not on the outside
anyway.. haven't bothered to open them up). in Backup Exec, you click on
the "Job Definitions" tab, double-click the desired job, click on the
"Advanced" tab, and select the compression level desired. in my setup
the options are: 1) none, 2) software, 2) hardware (if available) and 4)
hardware (if available, otherwise use software). YMMV.
i suggest experimenting.
--
stephen waters
internal sysadmin
amicus, inc.
