From: rhughes@ucsd.edu (Richard J. Hughes)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.misc
Subject: Stacker 3 woes
Date: 23 Dec 1992 05:40:14 GMT
Organization: ucsd.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: dial-slip21.ucsd.edu
Keywords: Stacker Lantastic Iomega Tape

In article <shopsis.50@panther.adelphi.edu> writes:

>I've been using stacker 2.0 for a while and was very happy with it.
>When Stacker 3.0 came out I was psyched.  Now I know.. if it
>ain't broke.. don't fix it.

Hey, you think you're alone?  No way.

>My system is a Northgate 386/20 with 4 Mb of RAM and two 65 Mb
>(before stacking) RLL hard disks.  I move back and forth between
>Win 3.1 and DOS 5.0.

I'm using an Orchid 33MHz superboard with 1280D video.  Stacker 3 can
really put the brakes on this system.  I also use DOS 5.0, Windoze 3.1 and 
Lantastic AI over ArcNet cards.  I was *really* impressed with Stacker 2.

>After I installed stacker 3.0 I re-stacked my disks to take
>advantage of its improved compression (I got an extra 3 or 4 Mb
>on each disk). I then started getting "read errors" from some
>programs.  Often the errors weren't fatal; I'd get a message
>about a read error, and then the program would manage to read
>its code or data and continue to run.

Stacker 3 really hates Lantastic.  I started getting random read
errors that would completely lock up one or all computers on the
network.  This happened mostly with my Iomega tape backup unit running under 
CPSCHED in the wee hours of the night.  Beep, beep, beep, beep........
The network has become unstable.  I finally isolated the problem.  
The problem is Stacker 3.  If I rem out everything except Stacker 3,
XTreePro won't even log a network drive without crashing.  Replace
Stacker 3 with the Stacker 2 driver and everything is fine.

>I've run chkdsk, stacker's check utility, and done a surface
>scan of the hard disks and no errors are reported.
>This appears to be some kind of subtle timing type problem..as
>if the data isn't being uncompressed fast enough, so that the
>program asking for it momentarily "thinks" that there's been a
>disk read error.  BTW, the problem is *not* corrected by using
>stacker 3.0's tuner.  It occurs whether I opt for maximum
>compression, or minimum compression and maximum speed.

The new Stacker 3 is all hype and aggrevation.  There is very little if any 
extra space to be derived from upgrading.  There appears to be no speed 
difference.  Those stupid Windoze meters are just that, i.e., stupid.  You 
and I should demand our money back.

>I sure would appreciate advice on this.  Does anybody know if
>its possible to "downgrade" from stacker 3 to stacker 2?  I know
>you can unstack a drive completely under 3.0, but I've been
>using 2.0 for a while, and no longer have enough space on my
>drives to unstack them.

I'll be calling Stac tomorrow morning.  I tried faxing them but there's no 
answer.  I bet we'll have to downgrade.  Don't they test this junk before 
they ship it?

Richard J. Hughes

p.s.    I called Stac technical support.  What happened to their fax 
number?  It took a long time on hold, 20-30 minutes, before I finally 
reached a person.  He was quite helpful but the wait was far too long.  They 
suggested I add the hack"/nb" to the stacker.com line in config.sys.  Not 
mentioned in the manual, the release documents note that this turns off the 
use of Stacker's buffers.  The technical support guy didn't say what the 
performance hit would be.  Turns out, however, that my disc access benchmark 
was already significantly reduced under Stacker 3 compared to 2.  
Adding /nb helped eliminate some of the problems that I was having, but the 
tape backup still fails randomly when backing up network drives.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Don't buy your loved ones Stacker 3 for Christmas.  You'll make 'em mad |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+


Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.misc