I am trying to backup database files which approximates to 36Gb to a DDS3 tape. I tried using the fbackup in a script but it fails as it asks for another tape due to insufficient space on the tape. Is there anyway that I can compress the data to fit it onto the tape.
The server in question is overseas and it is currenlty not possible to upgrade the DDS drive. The files is question are Oracle database files. Any idea on compressing them further before putting them on tape.
for all data files. At the end it deals with all of the archive logs. We have a dedicated filesystem for these backups.
Now once the above is done, we know almost exactly how much tape will be requuired.
You could do something very similar and experiment between compress and gzip. You could even try 'gzip -9' which is slower but can compress a whole lot more efficiently than just 'gzip'. You can use the same syntax as above to redirect the input and output of gzip as well.
I would do this with the DB in backup mode or with the DB down completely. Otherwise your backup will be essentially useless.
I running the fbackup thru a shell script which brings the database down before the backup.
The DB is spread over multiple FS. Can I compress and write to the tape using fbackup single FS as a time w/o overwriting the previous FS for that day - meaning can I compress /u01 and write it to tape, then compress /u02 and write it to tape and so on ..... The reason being we do not have a spare storage disk to allocate to the server and as I said as the server is overseas we do not have a dedicated Unix guy over there. We do remote administration of the server.
No, fbackup will ALWAYS rewind the tape before it starts backing up. That's just the way it works. If you run fbackup twice on a single tape, you will only have your second backup.
