[KLUG Members] help for longtime (but novice) user who finally managed to misuse rm...?

[Bruce Smith]

> Yep,  I bought an external USB drive (~80Gb) for something like $75.00.
> Backing up my laptop takes about 15 minutes,  then periodically I attach
> the USB drive to a real machine and back that up to a tape.

For anyone looking to buy an external USB drive, make sure both your
drive and PC support USB 2.0 HI-speed.  Anything slower (like USB 1.1 
or USB 2.0 FULL-speed), and you might as well backup to floppy.  :-(

I have a USB 1.1 drive, and it takes about 4 hours to copy 0.5GB to it.
(yes, about 8 hours per GB)

Also, you'll need a recent Linux kernel (i.e. SuSE 9.3) to support 
USB 2.0 HI-speed reliably.  (YMMV :)

I've also had good luck the little I've used Firewire drives on Linux.
They seem to perform at roughly the same speed as USB 2.0 HI-speed.
(and firewire seemed to work better than USB in earlier kernels)

 - BS