Re: Oracle Backup to Disks or Tapes

Not really. If you 'compress' the raw partitions and/or data files as you are taking the backup to disk you can dramatically reduce the amount of disk space required. I find on average that most db's will compress down to 1/5 of their 'real' size. Of course the payback here is CPU - you need a lot of it to compress a 100Gig database. Still, we do this on raw Oracle databases on a 4 CPU machine and it runs very well.

I also find it useful to have the backup disks set-up as a stripe set to get maximum throughput.

Nice thing about backup to disk is that you have a very quick recovery strategy. You also have a neater way of handling raw disks (i.e., dd and compress them to disk files first). Most of the 'enterprise' backup solutions I've seen/used are based around this mode of operation: disk first, bring you db's backup, backup the disk copy to tape in you own time.

Still, it does cost you some extra disks - but with large disk drives being so cheap today I think it worth the investment.

Just my take.

MotoX.

John P. Higgins wrote in message <35DA28CD.2BCEB82A_at_deere.com>...
>A two stage backup, first to disk and then to tape is much to be desired.
It
>also means you must double your disk farm. If you can afford that, go for
>it.
Received on Wed Aug 19 1998 - 02:14:31 CDT