Tape drives: QIC and easy - eight quarter-inch cartridge tape drives - includes related article on Best Buys - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, July, 1994 by Angela Gunn

EVER GOTTEN AN ERROR MESSAGE ON YOUR COMPUTER? That's right--an error message. Remember that little twinge--a combination of confusion and annoyance--that you felt? Imagine the sensation when the message is "Hard disk not found."

Tape backup drives may seem like the orthopedic shoes of your computer's wardrobe, but in fact they're inexpensive devices designed and refined to do one job and do it well--back up your precious data. And when disaster does strike--and according to Murphy's Law, that's invariably the night before the big project is due--just one backup tape can make the difference between mild aggravation (and a little retyping) and extreme despair (followed by having to make an embarrassing the-dog-ate-my-homework excuse to your client).

Tape backups work much like audiotapes. The computer records its information on a strip of film covered with magnetized particles. When you need the data, the device is able to fast forward or rewind to the information you need, or you can get all the data by playing the entire tape. Fortunately, you don't have to manually browse backup tapes as you do cassettes; the sophisticated software that comes with most drives is designed so that all you need to know is the name of the file or files you want.

The most established tape technology available for PCs is known as QIC (quarter-inch cartridge), based on the width of the magnetic tape itself. The QIC minicartridge cassettes (which typically cost between $15 and $20) are a compact 3 1/8 by 2 3/8 by 1/2 inches and are built to withstand an immense amount of abuse.

How to Buy Most PC tape drives are made by just a few companies but sold under many different labels, so you'll find that the equipment is quite standardized (and uniformly good). We looked at QIC-80 drives, which use the DC2120 minicartridges and hold 248MB of compressed data, the equivalent of 172 1.44MB floppy disks. (Some drives have slightly higher capacities due to proprietary data compression formatting.) QIC-80 drives are also able to read tapes from QIC-40 drives, which allow only 80MB of storage. QIC-40 drives are still on the market, but you'd be better off skipping them for the more advanced equipment.

Although available in the past, inexpensive QIC-80 drives never caught on in the Macintosh market. Most people who have Macs and need to back up their information either use the industry standard SyQuest drive (which provides 44MB, 88MB, and 105MB of storage on removable cartridges) or optical drives with storage capacities in excess of 1GB (gigabyte) to accommodate large graphics files.

The other important element to look for in the package is the bundled software. Though you can buy a drive alone, you'll probably want the specialized software that controls it. (If you already use diskmanagement products such as PC Tools for Windows or The Norton Desktop, though, you may have the right software already loaded and waiting.) Most drives come with both DOS and Windows software; the interfaces--plain but straightforward--allow you to back up and restore files, compare an archived file to the version on the hard drive, and even schedule backup for a time when your computer's not in use. A few companies create their own software, but we found that many bundle a good version of Central Point Backup.

QIC tape backup will cost you well under $1 per megabyte. The data-storage rule of thumb states that the less expensive the storage, the slower it is, and tape drives are no exception. Most of the drives we saw attached to the floppy-disk controller and had backup speeds of under 500Kps. In our testing we backed up 36MB of files in four separate directories; times varied, but even the fastest drives took approximately 10 minutes to back up and verify all the files. Additionally, we ran tape compatibility tests to ensure that files backed up to tape in one manufacturer's unit could be read by another's. This is extremely important should your system suffer a catastrophic failure--or is stolen, damaged, or destroyed.

Colorado Jumbo 250

Rating: ** 1/2

Colorado's Jumbo 250 is both reliable and efficient, turning in a solid performance in our tests. Bundled with Colorado's own tape backup software for Windows, the Colorado drive exhibits a few annoying traits (our test unit emitted a piercing shriek while in use), but it is otherwise quite recommendable.

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The internal drive connects to the PC's floppy controller cable, making installation easy--even though file transfers were of only average speed. Our testing collection of 36MB files in four directories was writtent to tape and verified in just over 22 minutes, which is about average for tape drives running on the floppy controller. Colorado also offers dedicated controller cards, with hardware-based file compression for even greater storage and time efficiency. The drive fits into either a 5.25-inch or a 3.5-inch bay. Unlike most of the other drives we saw, the Jumbo 250 is designed so that the end of the tape cartridge juts from the unit while in use; instead of using an eject button, we had to yank the tape from the machine by hand (a skill requiring a certain amount of upper-body strength). Unfortunately, Colorado does not bundle any tapes with the drive, which means extra cost and bother for the buyer.