miker169@... wrote:

> >> Steve: The only issue is that once the DB gets to a certain size it
> can be a pain to do a full backup/restore
>
> > Steve, thank you for your response. Please can you let me know a bit
> more about the backup problems > you are having and any
> possiblestrategies you have to mitigate them.
>
>
> > Marcus: not Steve, but a little bit of knowledge i'd like to share:
> > -when storing documents inside the database by using blobs, the only
> > real problem is the time a backup or restore of the database needs.
> > And the performance depends on several variables, such as what type of
> > hard disk, raid - and what type of raid, database and backup on separate
> > disks or even on separate engines, network,....
> > as you can see - a lot of parameters have influence to that 'problem'.
>
> Thank you for this. As my requirement is to have a store of documents
> relating to different projects, probably the best thing is to have a
> separate data file (.fdb) for each project. That will make the files
> much smaller and also I can have frequent backups for 'active' projects
> and less frequent backups for archive projects.
>
> > One possible strategie would be to store metadata and only store links
> > to the documents.
>
> I would like to avoid this if possible because in a sense I would be
> using the Firebird database as a container.

Yepp, that way there is no other possibility

>
> >> For example I thought it was possible to shutdown the server and use
> operating system services (i.e. SCP?) to copy the file?
>
> > That would be a save copy, but you'll never be shure if the database
> > structure is fine. A possibility would be to copy the database to
> > another server and perform a backup/restore cycle there.
>
> As mentioned above, I think I will get around the problem by splitting
> the databases into smaller chunks.
>
> However out of interest, would it be possible to do something like a
> gfix verification and possibly sweep after copying to check the
> integrity of the copied file or is this just as slow?

nearly as slow as a regular backup, as gfix uses the same internal
mechanisms as gbak. Ann or Helen has written about that here in the
list, or may be i've read it in the Firebird book.

cheers, Marcus

>
>
> >
> >
> > Many thanks...Mick
> >
> >
> >
>
>