John Burke <[log in to unmask]> writes: > I agree that two (or more, we use five) tape drives are better than one; > however, rather than a sequential backup (still takes as long) or a parallel > backup (too complex when a restore is required) why not two separate, > independent, backup jobs? > > We actually do five simultaneous backups to five tape drives. The obvious > advantage this has over a sequential backup is the time factor. The obvious > advantage over a parallel backup is ease of restore. Perhaps less obvious, > since the backups are independent, if one fails for any reason, we still > have a good backup of 4/5's of our system > > The downside to this scheme is you have to manually determine how to split > your system and periodically monitor how much is backed up by each process; > however, it has served us well for many years and once set up requires only > minimal attention. Exactly. My assumption is that this is a single tape backup that was spilling over onto a second tape. The *easiest* thing to do (besides just manually changing tapes) without introducing other complexities would be a sequential backup. Anything else would require deeper analysis and an overhaul of the backup procedure. Doug. Doug Werth Beechglen Development Inc. [log in to unmask] Cincinnati, Ohio