Steve Jones - Editor (4/28/2008)
I would never append backups to a file. As the size grows, you increase the chance of bad blocks or corruption and you could invalidate mutliple backups this way.I also never use devices.
Instead I would constantly create a new file with the date/time in the name, for every single backup.
This surprises me. I have about 60 servers using this strategy, and have never seen the corruption you warn of, or heard of it happening to another. Surely the prominent placement in 2K at "Management | Backup", and in 2K5 under "Server Objects | Backup devices", and the convenient "Media Contents" indicates they were intended to be used?
Mike Hinds Lead Database Administrator1st Source BankMCP, MCTS