Backup school: Quiz three, answer five

Question #5

If you have more than this number of tapes in your backup session and backup set, you are increasing the odds that your tapes will fail by how much?

a. 2
b. 5
c. 6
d. 7

Were you correct?

The correct answer is:

b) Dorian said if have more than five tapes in your backup set, you are really increasing the odds that your tapes will fail. "Five is a Networks Frontier rule we've created," says Dorian. On a related note, Dorian suggests having no more than 50-100 sessions per backup set. If five tapes and fifty sessions are best, ten tapes and one hundred sessions should be your outer limit, and even then you're bound to have some hiccups, says Dorian. It's simple: The more sessions you have, the longer your backups will take.

Related articles:

  • Talking about tape compatibilities
  • Designing a tape SAN for backup

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    This was first published in June 2004

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