Re: Appending to Informix backup

In article <3612DD0C.ED82A454@hotmail.com>, june_t@hotmail.com (June Tong) wrote: > Art Kagel wrote: > >If you position the tape to the second file, ie past the first archive, > ontape will write to > >the end of the tape. However, ontape, when it restores, opens and > closes the tape > >device several times expecting the tape to rewind to the beginning of > the > >archive. This means that you will not be able to restore the archive > without first copying > >it to the beginning of another tape cartridge. > > Hmmm. I can't see any reason why ontape would open and close the tape > device several times on the restore. Last time I looked (admittedly, > quite a while ago), I don't think that was the case, and using a > no-rewind tape device would only bomb when you went to a second tape > (and that because the archive process closed and re-opened, not the > restore process). But I'm getting old, and my memory isn't what it used > to be. Hum hum hum, wonder how I'd test that... > > Anyway, I think the original question dealt with putting the NT backup > after the ontape backup. In that case, you REALLY have to worry about > what the NT backup process is doing, not ontape. > > June > -- > june_t@hotmail.com > Lost in the wilds of Palo Alto, living on Peanut M&M's > > > I agree with Art that the tape will rewind. I've just tried it. However, if a multi-tape backup has all the elements on the same tape (ie used a norewind device) one after the other the tape does restore - go figure that one. Before anybody says why would you want to do that - back in the Informix Turbo/Plexus days the tape could only be 2GB and we used tape stripping to fit 40GB of data onto the tapes in one hit. Paul Watson # I don't suffer from WF Software Ltd. # stress, I'm just Tel. (+44) 1436 674729 # a carrier Fax. (+44) 1436 678693 # www.wfsoftware.co.uk