newbie Q about 5.0 backups

I just inherited an Informix 5.0 Online project, server running under AIX. I haven't tried any backups yet and was wondering... Can one use tptape to do the archives to a disk device (say, a jfs volume) instead of to tape? We do our other RDBMs this way: we use their backup utils to dump to a disk volume, and then use trusty ole system utility sysback to perform the backup to tape. That makes our other RDBMs happy, our SysAdmin happy, and our operators VERY happy as they have fewer tapes to mount. Obviously, I haven't tried this. The manual does not even allude to non-tape devices, other than /dev/null, and so I wondered if this was kosher. As an alternative, I thought about exporting the critical databases to disk (again, where our standard backups would get them). The manual advises that they don't recommend this approach; any idea as to why? I was thinking that perhaps one could first export the entire DB (schema and tables), perform an archive to /dev/null, and then live happily ever after secure in the knowledge that we have a good archive... err, I mean, backup. Your comments appreciated! -- Mark B. Meredith | mbm1@ntrs.com Northern Trust Co. | Voice: 312.630.6295 Chicago, IL USA | FAX: 312.444.3951