Re: HP-UX / Informix backup

> It is technically possible to use ontape & tbtape to create a backup into a > Unix > disk file. Apart from the dangers of overwriting the file during 'tape > changes' there > are at least two other problems. > > Firstly - file size. The maximum physical file size in many Unix systems is > about > 2 Gigabytes - if you try to write to a file bigger than this the internal > file pointer > just wraps because the pointer cannot hold an offset larger than about 2Gb. > This > means that you must not tell ontape / tbtape that the 'tape' is larger than > 2Gb. > If the thing does wrap, you will get no errors or warnings, but the data is > not > recoverable. The exact maximum file size is not clear to me, last time I > tried > on Solaris it was just under 2 GB. Not knowing what the max size on your > system is > might lose you more than just your users data! > Is it possible to direct the ontape archive to a raw disk area (in my case, a HP-UX Logical Volume) rather than to a disk file? I imagine this would overcome the 2Gb limit. (Of course it would not be covered by a Unix fbackup, I would then copy the data out to tape by other means). Does anyone have experience of trying this? Richard Woolfall Syntegra