Re: backup takes too long

Curtis Preston wrote: > > In article <5kqbf8$r9b@cssun.mathcs.emory.edu>, From ennis@ssax.com > (Bill Ennis), the following was written: > > You may want to look at onarchive which allows parallel backup > > to multiple tape drives. This will require some setup to implement. > > How much data do you have? I was able to backup 3.5 GB in 40 minutes > > the other day using plain ontape. At that rate 40 hours could > > back up about 210 GB. > > > > Another option is a faster tape drive. > > > > -Bill > > Bill, I've got to disagree with you big time. Onarchive is a nightmare, > and should not be used for anything. Take the lead from Informix, and > dump it. (That's why they wrote onbar!) Your "this will require some > setup" is putting it mildly. I am a data protection expert, and worked > with Onarchive for many months. Short version: > > 1) read the manual 4 times > 2) went to the official class > 3) spent 4 months designing and testing a solution > 4) tried ~3~ times to do a recovery using the backups. > 5) After multiple failures, we gave up, bought a bigger/faster drive > and went back to ontape. > > If you need a faster backup, do one of the following: > > 1) buy a faster drive (12 m/s drives available now for $$$$) > 2) backup to disk (although officially unsupported) > 3) get a commercial backup package and onbar (my recommendation) > > -- > I am currently writing a book for O'Reilly Publishing about enterprise > backup and recovery, and would really appreciate hearing anything > you would like to ask me or tell me. If you have problems with > something, then others will as well. Can you think of anything > else that should go in such a book? Curtis, Are you suggesting the restore features of OnArchive do not work correctly, or are you talking about the product in general? I have had some reasonable exposure to OnArchive, actually setting it up, and implementing backups, however, I have not done a restore. My curiousity is in whether or not you can actually restore with it. I've witnessed a restore recently, from tapes made with OnArchive, and it involved Informix support to restore the logs. I am not aware of all the parameters involved in the need to involve Informix support, so the big question is in the reliability to be able to do a restore, and how difficult it is. Ever since hearing about OnArchive, then using it, I've heard many conflicting things about it, number one, that it's hard to set up. I found it actually not that difficult to set up, on a Solaris box, just tedious. The other thing I hear about is the reliability, so maybe more enlightenment on this would help us all. It would be nice to have a definitive reason not to use OnArchive. Thanks in advance, Tim -- Tim Schaefer \\\\|// tschaefe@mindspring.com (6 6) ------------------------oOOo---( )---o00o--------- http://www.mindspring.com/~tschaefe http://www.inxutil.com MAKE TIDAL WAVES DIVE IN THE OCEAN IS BIG