Re: Dual tape drives: logical log and level 0

On Wed, 25 Nov 1998 17:00:02 -0500, "Art S. Kagel" <kagel@bloomberg.net> wrote: >You stop the continuous log backup when you start the archive and >change the tape, restarting the continuous log backup when the archive >completes. The archive will backup any logs created in the interrum. >You just have to make sure you have enough log file space that the logs >will not completely fill during a typical archive. > >Art S. Kagel Because I only had 1 DAT drive available at the time, I used this single-drive approach as you describe. Now, even though I have more tape drives around, I still use only one drive... If you are continuing to backup logical logs while you do an archive, you have to be very careful about labeling your tapes so that you know exactly which logical log tapes you will need to do a restore. It seems that if you do use 2 drives, you are physically and logically separating the archives from the logical logs.. By using only a single tape drive, I can just bundle the last-completed archive tape together w/ the log tape(s) that I just stopped continuous backup to, and I know that that little rubber-banded bundle will give me a complete restore. I alternate thru 5 of these bundles. Does this make sense to take this approach? This brings up another point - If the most recent archive comes up bad during a restore, I can go back to the prior bundle, restore that archive, and then restore logical logs from that one plus the most recent bundle. But if a logical log backup is bad, then i'm out of luck (because they are cumulative). I might get my database back up, but w/o all current data/transactions. So it is *much* more important (relatively speaking) to get the logical log backup right. There are no second chances there.........correct? allen