From: dla@se05.wg2.waii.com (Doug Acker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Stacker 3.0 Questions
Date: 16 Dec 92 13:12:34 GMT
	<1992Dec15.124228.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi>
Organization: western geophysical exploration products
In-reply-to: lauusitalo@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi's message of 15 Dec 92 10:42:28 GMT

>>>>> On 15 Dec 92 10:42:28 GMT, lauusitalo@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi said:

	lauusitalo> In article <rnk2ps@rpi.edu>, duchad@aix02.ecs.rpi.edu (David Benedict Ducharme) writes:
> In article <Bz6tCw.Cv@news.cso.uiuc.edu> mlandaue@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael C Landauer) writes:
>>
>>I am considering buying Stacker 3.0 as my 40MB hard drive is almost full.
>>I would like to ask a couple questions to those who have used this product.
>>
>>1.  What improvements were made from version 2.0?
>>
>>2.  Has anyone encountered any bugs?
>>
>>3.  Are there any programs that don't work with it?
>>
>>4.  To anyone using it with a 40MB hard drive:  How much space did it add?
>>
>>Thanx in advance!
>>Merry Xmas!
>>
>>Mike Landauer
>>mlandaue@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu
>>
> in addition I was wondering if, and how much Stacker affects the programs
> that are running.  Does it slow it down,
> 
> Also, when you are storing to a tape backup, say a Colorado 250 Jumbo,
> how is the data saved.  If I originally have a 160 meg drive, and
> Stack it, will I be able to backup the "320 Megs" of the 160 
> drive.
> 
> Thank you
> duchad@rpi.edu

	lauusitalo> People seem to have little misunderstands about stacker. It uses one huge
	lauusitalo> file containing all files in packed format. When there is need for file
	lauusitalo> stacker unpacks it from that file. This happens automatically and you
	lauusitalo> can not notice it. It does not pack files like PKlite and such exe packers.
	lauusitalo> They affect one file at time so to say. If you compress your files using
	lauusitalo> PKZIP or PKLite or any other "conventional" compress program you affect
	lauusitalo> one file at time. These you can backup to tape individually and you can
	lauusitalo> save tape space. But if you copy stacked files to tape they take just
	lauusitalo> as much tape space as normally without stacker. You have to compress them
	lauusitalo> separately by some program to save space. You could backup that huge
	lauusitalo> stackvol file. But restoring individual files would be impossible.
	lauusitalo> I thought that these tape backup programs had their own compress routines.

	lauusitalo> I do not know if there is possibility to stack tape drive acting like
	lauusitalo> disk drive. But is there any need for that?

	lauusitalo> Speed is one thing people often complain about stacker. I am not sure
	lauusitalo> if these people have ever used stacker. Slow harddrives like
	lauusitalo> old Seagates >28ms will be quicker when using stacker. Because HD does
	lauusitalo> not have to make so many rotations and seeks to find program which is
	lauusitalo> now located in smaller area. When using fast disks this is not same.
	lauusitalo> It might be faster without stacker but little smaller also.
	lauusitalo> If the speed is must then consider that HW option. Although bigger and
	lauusitalo> faster HD might be cheaper. Tough choice. Anyway you will add that
	lauusitalo> stacker later when your bigger HD comes to 99% full. :)

	lauusitalo> Stacker adds as much space as you want. You can change that scaling number
	lauusitalo> to whatever you want. But this is only part of the truth. This is only
	lauusitalo> used to show free space numbers and has nothing (or very little) to do 
	lauusitalo> with real free space. 

	lauusitalo> If you have disk full of zips then there is no need or use for stacker. You 
	lauusitalo> could not get any more space. But if you have normal exe and txt stuff then
	lauusitalo> adding stacker increases disk capacity to about 1.5 times old capacity.
	lauusitalo> So you could get about 60 MB real storage capacity. May be even 80 MB
	lauusitalo> if you have "loose" files.

	lauusitalo> If you were asking about improvements to 2.0 then look previous postings
	lauusitalo> where was a notify about these. Someone said that speed was better but
	lauusitalo> compress ratio has not changed (at least substantionally).

	lauusitalo> I have used stacker 2.0 for quite a long time and have had almost no
	lauusitalo> problem with it. AOTP had some sort of problems but they are solved.
	lauusitalo> Mostly it is because some program behaves like it shouldn't an I guess
	lauusitalo> with these programs problems can arise with plain DOS.

	lauusitalo> Hope that this clarifies something somewhere. Perhaps there are some
	lauusitalo> bugs in this writing but correct me if any.


	lauusitalo> Merry Xmas to you both and all you out there!!

	lauusitalo> Lauri

	lauusitalo> ps. I have nothing to do with Stacker except using it. So these are my
	lauusitalo>     own opinions and observations. Wrong or right.

Does SuperStor work the same way as Stacker?  One big file?
--
Douglas L.Acker                Western Geophysical Exploration Products
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