Before you do a backup, be sure that your archive media has sufficient space. When you estimate available space on disk or tape, keep in mind these rules:
You need enough room for a full backup of the catalog store, as well as the full or incremental backup of the IQ store. If your catalog store holds SQL Anywhere data in addition to the Sybase IQ system tables, you need room to back up this data as well.
You do not need to include space for the transaction log, as this log is not backed up.
For tape backups, the first tape set you specify must be able to hold the full backup of the catalog store, including any non-IQ data in the catalog store. (A tape set consists of one or more backup tapes produced on a given archive device.)
For stacker devices that hold multiple tape drives, all tapes for a given device must be the same size.
Sybase recommends that you always start a new tape for every backup.
Before starting a backup to disk, Sybase IQ first tests whether there is enough disk file space for the backup. For an operator-attended backup to disk, if there is not enough space, BACKUP prompts you to move some files from the disk before it writes any data. The backup does not start until you provide more disk space.
Likewise, if you run out of space during an attended disk backup, BACKUP closes all open backup files and waits until it detects that you have cleared some space. Then it restarts with new backup files. You can also stop the backup if you prefer.
By default, you must provide at least 8KB of free disk space before the backup resumes.
Unattended backup cannot prompt you to provide more space. Unless enough space is available, unattended backup fails. BACKUP treats size estimates differently for unattended backups. See “Unattended backup” for details.
For an operator-attended backup to tape, BACKUP simply begins the backup. If it runs out of room, you must mount additional tapes.
