May 2, 2006 at 2:44 pm
We currently back up our databases to disk and after that those files are backed up to tape. My manager would like to backup directly to tape. Does anyone have experience with that? I do not handle the current tape backup, but I believe it uses a tape system. Is there any pros and cons with backing up directly to tape? Are there any 3rd party tools that are recommended for doing that?
May 3, 2006 at 6:57 am
MIchelle,
A couple of cons of going directly to tape are that it takes quite a bit longer to do a restore from tape as opposed to disk. It is good practice to at least have 1 nights backup on disk. Anothe con is that it takes longer to do the backup itself. We also found that there was a higher backup failure rate when going directly to tape.
What is your reasons for going to tape instead of disk to tape? Storage is pretty cheap these days & definitely worth getting a little more storage to keep backups to disk in my opinion. We have been very happy with this strategy since we switched over a couple of years ago.
HTH,
John
May 3, 2006 at 7:05 am
My manager's main concern is backing up the backup files to tape from the disk. He is concerned that the tape backup could miss or skip a file and we may not be aware of it. We do get daily reports on the status of the tape backup, and it indicates if any files were skipped, but he doesn't have a high degree of trust in that. His main experience is with Oracle and what he is really looking for is something in SQL Server that would be similar to RMAN in oracle going directly to a tape sub-system. I am not aware of anything like that though.
May 3, 2006 at 8:49 am
While I'm not aware of a RMAN-like option in SQL Server, we have used Archserve's SQL Server agent to backup directly to disk in the past. Though I stopped doing it for the same reasons laker 42 listed. I too back up all of my databases to disk and then to tape. It's a much faster restore/clone that way.
May 3, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Every best practices guide out there says that you should absolutely backup to disk first. Disk gives you faster backups, faster restores, more reliability, and more options than you have with a direct tape option. I would fight your manager on this one as much as you can. If you do have to backup to tape you basically lose all control and performance of your backup process. If disk space is a concern take a look at a compression tool like LiteSpeed to relax the storage requirements of this disk first process.
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