September 15, 2004 at 8:58 am
What is the downside of using tape as the backup/restore medium?
What is the upside?
September 15, 2004 at 10:57 am
Downsides:
1. takes longer to backup to tape instead of disk.
2. normally a third-party software is used. This is not always trustworthy.
3. tapes wear out. You have to make sure your tapes are replaced frequently (especially if they are used a lot)
Upsides:
1. backing up to disk can cause problems if your hard drive crashes. That's not only your database, but also your backup gone. Unless you have a separate disk (computer) for your backups to disk. And that's expensive.
2. you can 'archive' tapes for off-site storage.
3. if you need to restore to a different system, it's easier to do with tape.
-SQLBill
September 16, 2004 at 7:11 am
To my experience,
- Backups to tape can be faster than disk when the backup and the database are using the same disk/raid. But, I agree that this might not be your case.
- I always use the SQL command BACKUP with no problems.
But I see the following disadvantages:
- Make sure you have a tape when you do the backup !
- Tape might have media problems, and you might not know that the backup is corrupt
September 16, 2004 at 7:11 am
To my experience,
- Backups to tape can be faster than disk when the backup and the database are using the same disk/raid. But, I agree that this might not be your case.
- I always use the SQL command BACKUP with no problems.
But I see the following disadvantages:
- Make sure you have a tape when you do the backup !
- Tape might have media problems, and you might not know that the backup is corrupt
September 16, 2004 at 7:11 am
To my experience,
- Backups to tape can be faster than disk when the backup and the database are using the same disk/raid. But, I agree that this might not be your case.
- I always use the SQL command BACKUP with no problems.
But I see the following disadvantages:
- Make sure you have a tape when you do the backup !
- Tape might have media problems, and you might not know that the backup is corrupt
September 16, 2004 at 10:08 am
I think both are needed. I use both, backup to disk because it's faster. Not necessarily the speed of the tape these days, but the speed of mounting, moving, changing, etc., local disk is faster. Then I move it to tape from there. I have a high speed local copy of the most recent backup if I need it and a lower (slightly) speed of older backups.
Also tape is cheaper for version control, which you may need for more protection, taking offsite, legal reasons, etc.
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