Re: pyramid 2 gig limit on backup

: -> I wrote: : -> : This is not true. Informix supports archive devices up to 2 TERAbytes. : -> : lseek is not used by the Informix archive utilities. : -> : -Joe Lumbley wrote: : -> The explanation that Williams gives is exactly the same explanation : that : -> I got from Informix Support when we had the identical problem on a : Pyramid : -> MIS machine. The explanation that Williams gives (which got snipped somewhere along the way, but had to do with lseek() having a 2GB limit) pertains to the 2GB limit on chunk size, not tape size. OnLine does use lseek() to verify the size of your device when you add a chunk, so it is limited (on 32-bit machines) to 2GB. Ontape does not use lseek(). : -> I was told that ontape (don't know about on-archive) : does it : -> all in one long write, and that write is limited to 2GB. Ontape also does NOT write the whole archive in one long write, so that is also not limited to 2GB. I'm sorry, but if Informix Support said that, they were misinformed. Yes, there are customers who are using the whole tape. I have used 7GB tapesize myself, and archived a 6GB OnLine instance. Chao Y. Din (cdin@csc.com) wrote: : I believe we need to differentiate disk-backup from tape-backup. : We are running Sun Solaris 2.5.x with OnLine 7.1x and 7.20. The latest : tape backup we did took 8 tapes and each tape is configured form 7 GB. : On the other hand, when backing up to disk, it failed when exceeded 2 : GB. : What I believe is that Informix should write to a new file when 2 GB : limit is reached. Otherwise the disk-backup is just a vaporware for : Informix. OnLine does not differentiate between archiving to disk and archiving to tape. If you have a file system with more than 2GB free space, and your ULIMIT (and any other OS restrictions) allow you to create a file of >2GB size, you should be able to archive more than 2GB to disk as well. Otherwise, you should just set your tapesize to 2GB (or however much your OS will let you do), and manually move the files whenever ontape prompts you to change the tape. Some people (don't look at me) have done this with scripts or programs. There are probably some examples in the archives. June ---- June Tong Informix Software ---- ---- Senior Consultant (415) 926-6140 ---- ---- International Support junet@informix.com ---- ---- Location-du-jour: Menlo Park ---- * * Standard disclaimers apply * - Please do not send me requests/questions by mail. When I have the knowledge - and time permits, I try to answer questions on comp.databases.informix, but - travel schedule, time, and volume make responding to personal requests - difficult and often slow. Please call your local Informix Technical Support - organization for assistance with technical issues.