Re: optical disks and online

Laura Schouweiler writes: |> We have an OnLine engine using a raw disk partition. However, there is not |> enough space on the disk to hold all of the data. The plan now is to use an |> optical disk to hold the historical data (seven years worth). |> |> The problem is, apparently you cannot have a raw partition on an optical |> disk. |> But, I'm told that it can have cooked files on it (Is this true?). Anyway, |> what we need to know is, can OnLine support both raw and cooked dbspaces at |> the |> same time? Or will we need two instances of Online? OnLine can indeed support both raw and cooked chunks. However, the problem with optical disks is another matter. The question you must ask is: can my optical disk support rewrites? If the answer to this is no (i.e. you have a WORM drive) then this device cannot be used by OnLine in any manner beyond (possibly) OnLine/Optical, which will not solve your problem (see below). If the optical drive includes a device driver that makes it look like a standard Unix character-special file, and it supports rewrites, then there is no real reason you cannot use it as a chunk. If it does not support charater-special access, but does allow you to build a fully modifiable file system on it, then you can use a cooked file built in that file system as a chunk. The main problem is being able to update data on the device. Whether you intend to update the database data on it is irrelevent because OnLine has to update various system info on any chunk (namely the chunk free list). If the update is not possible, it cannot be used as a chunk. |> We can't find any information about optical disks our INFORMIX manuals. The |> only thing we can find is a mention of a product called |> INFORMIX-OnLine/Optical. Is this what we need? No. OnLine/Optical is solely for storing BLOB data, and it must be used with an optical subsystem, not just an optical drive. Dave Disclaimer: These opinions are not those of Informix Software, Inc. ************************************************************************** "I look back with some satisfaction on what an idiot I was when I was 25, but when I do that, I'm assuming I'm no longer an idiot." - Andy Rooney