Hi Scott,
I have been asked to write a pamphlet for the Techmanager6000, and have been experimenting with backup and calculating figures etc.

The slowness is not necessarily a function of the parallel communication. Usb would increase the data rate by maybe 50% but this would not substantially change a backup or restore time realistically.

The majority of time is taken with hard disk reading/writing, both on the sx6 and the laptop/pc. This will be faster in the 6000 since the file sizes are much smaller, but slower than the 5000 just because the sx6 is more than 3 times bigger with much more data (if the sx is full!).

The hard disk writing time is because the file allocation tables are updated with every file saved. This means that you can abort at any time, and then the load pages, alphabet lists, custom load scripts, load by numbers etc are all updated and ready to go after any operation. Also the automatic archive backup of just the changes since last time can be achieved reliably. And the sx verifies after each save as a double check, this takes extra read time.

The only way to do a shorter backup and restore is with a Norton Ghost type of protocol, where all data and file allocation tables are copied. But you would lose certain functions and flexibility in these circumstances.

There are many ways to achieve a backup, but would probably involve even more expense


[This message has been edited by technicsplayer (edited 02-03-2002).]