ALZDBA (4/29/2008)
I always use backup devices and within a cycle (between full backups) have my log-backups incremental.Only very rare I've noticed backups failing because of the device.
We regulary test pit-restores and didn't encounter issues.
I must admit most of or log-backups don't grow over 4Gb per cycle.
I use two backup devices per database:
"DBName.bak" holds the Sunday full and up to six days of differentials. It is cleared Sunday night with INIT, so it is never > 6 days old.
"DBName_Log.bak" holds the incremental log backups since the last full or diff. It is cleared daily with INIT (following the successful full or diff), so it is never > 24 hours old.
Out of 60 servers, maybe two have the log backup device grow over 5 GB on a busy day.
The big issue would be if either the full or diff saw corruption. I could probably reduce that risk by adding FORMAT to the INIT, but never felt it necessary before. My IT guys can retrieve up to two weeks of previous files if they are needed (has happened once or twice when I needed to get us back before Sunday).
Mike Hinds Lead Database Administrator1st Source BankMCP, MCTS