Author Topic: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?  (Read 15156 times)

Dave Yeo

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Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« on: December 18, 2015, 12:57:39 am »
I understand that for OS/2 to see a 2TB drive the geometry needs adjusting. If done to a USB 2TB drive, will Windows still see it?
I'd like to acquire one and share it between myself (OS/2) and my son who has Win7 and Linux on his box by partitioning into two 1TB partitions and using for backup purposes.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2015, 02:06:28 am »
I don't have a 2 TB drive, but I did split a couple of 1 TB drives to share between OS/2 and windows. I used DFSEE to wipe the front end of the drive, then I used Manage Volumes (MiniLVM) to build the volumes. The one for windows was not assigned a LVM drive letter (select 'none'). Then, I used OS/2 to format the OS/2 volume (JFS), and I used windows to format the windows partition (NTFS). If you want to share a volume between OS/2 and windows, I suggest a FAT32 volume, formatted using the DFSEE routine.

roberto

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2015, 09:19:57 am »
I with 2tb usb disk, create a single FAT32 volume Dfsee apparently all ok. The first backup from OS2, all ok. In the second backup I stood in a strange way. And when you try to do a chkdsk to external USB, it gave me a trap laptop, I lost partition tables but not from the external drive, in the notebook. Finally I could get it all on the laptop, USB drive and leave it as a single volume in JFS. The proposed Doug Bisset think is the best.
Saludos

ak120

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2015, 04:58:48 pm »
I don't know of any OS/2 backup program that would really supports external USB hard drives. Ok, it's possible to copy files to them, but how long would a 500 GB or 1 TB backup run in real world. Good chances that it will not complete at all because the lack of reliable USB device drivers under OS/2. Now try to a restore to bare metal from this external drive, quite impossible in an OS/2-only scenario. External SATA or Firewire-800 connections are much faster than USB 2.0/3.0 and have lower cpu load btw.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2015, 08:39:27 pm »
I don't know of any OS/2 backup program that would really supports external USB hard drives. Ok, it's possible to copy files to them, but how long would a 500 GB or 1 TB backup run in real world. Good chances that it will not complete at all because the lack of reliable USB device drivers under OS/2. Now try to a restore to bare metal from this external drive, quite impossible in an OS/2-only scenario. External SATA or Firewire-800 connections are much faster than USB 2.0/3.0 and have lower cpu load btw.

What are you talking about? In the real world, USB with 500, or 1 TB (and probably 2 TB - I don't have one) disks work very well (slow, but well). I do multi gigabyte backups to them often, using eCS and the latest Arca Noae drivers (or Lars' drivers). Restore works just as well. I use ZIP to make the backups, and UNZIP to do the restore. I also use RSync to make backups that are much easier to extract individual files from. I do use JFS formatted drives for OS/2 (eCS) backups.

I do agree that eSATA is faster. I don't know much about Firewire, so I can't comment, other than we don't have a working driver. I also agree, that USB does have a heavy CPU load, but that is the way that it was designed, and that is true for all platforms. None of that makes USB drivers "unreliable" for backups. Restore has always worked, for me, when I use a program that is capable of doing it (BackAgain/2000 can't do it any more). Sometimes, SYSINSTX is required to fix the boot record. IMO USB hard disks are far more reliable than using CD or DVD media, and they are far more reliable that tape could ever be (I won't comment on diskettes).

One thing, that I do know, is that using the FAT32 cache program, with a FAT32 formatted drive, WILL cause unreliable operation, no matter what the media is, or how it is attached. It also slows the whole thing, and probably increases the CPU load. I highly recommend REMing the FAT32 cache program in CONFIG.SYS, if you use it. I also recommend not using EAs with FAT32 (very few things, other than the desktop, need EAs). Of course, I don't know why anybody would want to back up OS/2 (eCS) to a FAT32 drive anyway, but stranger things have been known to happen.

Joop

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2015, 05:24:47 pm »
All backup programs which works through drivers do work, I do backup with a backup program on USB disk. All backup programs which do work direct with media needs to know how the media works, as progress is going more rapid with time its to be expected that all backup programs which works direct with media will vanish, the investment is too high to develop or rework source time after time. I use 120Gb USB drives for my backups and have real problems to fill it. My harddisk of 160Gb is formatted for 100Gb, the remainder is never touched. 2T, that's a nightmare, what do you do with it?

Pete

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2015, 06:46:53 pm »
Hi All

@Joop

You slowly fill the 2Tb disk with backups . It can take a while ;-)

However, as I am fairly sure Doug and others will agree, only 1 disk is not the way to go.

A backup strategy should include another device eg CD/DVD/2ndDisk, as there is always the possibility that the
backup disk could fail - I speak from bitter fairly recent experience where I had my system drive fail and when I replaced the system drive and attempted to restore from backups my USB backup drive went "fizzle, fizzle, BANG!"

I lost nearly 2 years worth of data... Luckily most of it was not important. I have, however, had to spend a little time in the past few months gradually rebuilding my USBcfg source code to the current release level. Nearly there, just have to try and figure out how I managed to code a few functions...  :-)

My own fault as I had let my backup strategy of backing up my backups to a 2nd backup drive slide. This happened as a result of a letting my son borrow the 2nd backup drive which he failed to return when he was meant to. When he did return it, several months and a bit of "nagging" later, he had reformatted the drive NTFS... Grrr!!!

I will not be lending out my 2nd backup drive again  - well, maybe... but only if it is necessary to save the world  ;-)


@Andreas Kohl

I have to agree with Doug that there should be no problem using a USB drive as a backup and also that it is slower than an eSATA drive - a recent test here using an enclosure with USB3 and eSATA ports showed copying the same data from hard disk to eSATA drive took around 25% of the time that it took with the same external hard drive connected as a USB(2) drive. Of course, the problem with eSATA is the current lack of hot swap capability.

If you are having problems with USB drives post the details - hardware involved and bldlevels of drivers involved - and I am sure we will all do our best to help. If you have not tried using USBcfg to check and reconfigure your USB drivers it may be worth a try - especially as the Help has an FAQ relating to installing, configuring and using USB drives on OS/2. It is available as Warpin or Zip package from  http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=usbcfg&pushbutton=Search


Regards

Pete

Doug Bissett

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2015, 11:06:22 pm »
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2T, that's a nightmare, what do you do with it?

Hehe, now that is a good question. There was an old saying that goes something like: "Give them the resources, and they will find a way to use them." More often than not, it is all too true. The biggest problem is that users tend to collect so much JUNK, that they can't find what they thought they stored there anyway.

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However, as I am fairly sure Doug and others will agree, only 1 disk is not the way to go.

Well, that depends a lot on how you use the machine, but yes more than one, PHYSICAL, backup is generally a good idea. Of course, under normal circumstances, the backup for your backup is the original. However, when Murphy sticks his nose into the mix, all bets are off (sounds like he got you good).

It is always a good idea to have an emergency backup. Mine consists of a USB stick, where I store all of my own personal data, and a few other things that would likely be difficult to get elsewhere. You can always get the OS, and most  programs, from other sources, but you can't get your own address book, or e-mail, from other sources.

FWIW, I don't recommend storing more than one copy of a backup (including incremental, and/or differential backups, if you do it that way) on a single backup media. If it goes bad, you have lost the works. It is also a good idea to store an emergency backup off site. 14 backups, on 14 disks, won't do you much good if they are all destroyed by fire (for instance).

One of the newest backup media, is the "cloud". That might sound like a good idea, but in most cases, it is way too slow  for doing normal backups. You also run a higher risk that somebody will break into it, and do bad things with it. My personal view is that the "cloud" is useful for sales people who need immediate access to things like price lists, and order forms, when they are out of the office. It is not a good place to put  backups, or even photos.

Joop

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #8 on: December 28, 2015, 06:02:20 pm »
Little bit of topic. Always installs more than one drive in your computer. Be sure your power can handle the load easily, I always use factor 2. At start up a drive uses the highest amps and they do start same time. Because your power is twice what's needed it will stay cooler and less stress at tops. Clean the fan now and then, it helps. Now you have at least two drives in your system. So you can copy important data on both drives. Its very unlikely that both drives will fail same time. Have backups on also more drives, so you can have important data on more backup drives. If your private user, don't backup too often, once a month or so. Backing up more often does have the risk that you backup not noticed problems with it (from own experience). Backup is one thing, restore is totally different. Try at least once to be sure you have a working set for your system. I use a backup system which lets me the choice to make a restore in a total different configuration. As we go along our views, way of thinking and insights will alter and do have the outcome that we will do things different, after all we are the thinking generation...

Andi B.

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2015, 06:45:00 pm »
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Its very unlikely that both drives will fail same time.
Except when your power supply unit dies so badly that the output voltages rises up. F.i. while an over voltage event (surge) or simply cause it's to old or to low quality. Then your backup on the second internal drive will vaporize too.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Share a 2TB USB drive between Windows and OS/2?
« Reply #10 on: December 28, 2015, 07:45:24 pm »
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Its very unlikely that both drives will fail same time.
Except when your power supply unit dies so badly that the output voltages rises up. F.i. while an over voltage event (surge) or simply cause it's to old or to low quality. Then your backup on the second internal drive will vaporize too.

I agree with this. It is true that having two drives in a machine is convenient, but there are a lot of reasons (including power supplies) why both drives could be damaged, or lost (perhaps the machine is stolen). I prefer to have a second, third... physical backup, so that something like that cannot happen. Even then, having two (or more) physical drives in the same location, exposes you to the possibility of total loss (perhaps by fire). You do need to determine what level of exposure you are willing to accept, and take steps to make sure that whatever happens, can't take out all of your backups.

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Backing up more often does have the risk that you backup not noticed problems with it (from own experience).

Not backing up often enough also has risks. That is why I do it in more than one way, and on different schedules. Even then, I have lost a few things because of backing up too often, but I have lost more things by not backing up often enough. It all comes back to the level of risk that you are willing to accept, and making a good plan to minimize the risks. Then, of course,  (the hard part) you need to TEST the plan, to be sure that it works as deigned. Most of it is simple common sense, but all possibilities need to be evaluated.