Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: conversions
Message-ID: <1989Oct9.030202.2518@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <24988@louie.udel.EDU> <2457@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> <3545@ast.cs.vu.nl> <2470@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> <2472@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> <3593@ast.cs.vu.nl> <1146@atha.AthabascaU.CA>
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 89 03:02:02 GMT

In article <1146@atha.AthabascaU.CA> rwa@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Ross Alexander) writes:
>...I and 2 other staff converted a 1,300 MByte Vax from Ultrix
>1.2 to 2.3, in the process changing the partitions around and entirely
>rebuilding all the filesystems.  The I/O time was as nothing compared
>to the thinking time required.  And this was using dinky little 2400
>foot 6250 bpi tapes ...

It may not have dawned on you that even the poorest 6250 tape, far from
being "dinky", is *lots* better than the backup media many people have.
Even in VAX/Ultrix shops, there are many people who hesitate to rearrange
filesystems because of slow, small backup media (e.g. try doing 1.5GB of
disk with TK50s, a situation one of my friends is facing now...).

>I have
>limited sympathy for the "it'll take too much effort to dump/restore"
>crowd.

I have considerable sympathy for them.  It may help that utzoo was using
1600-bpi tape recently enough for me to remember it well.

Remember what happened to the last person who said "let them eat cake".
-- 
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
