Backup COPY vs BACKUPSET

3
votes

Oracle has two options of backuping database, and documentation on them is very brief.

To back up to disk as image copies, use BACKUP AS COPY as shown in

BACKUP AS COPY
DEVICE TYPE DISK
DATABASE;

To back up your data into backup sets, use the AS BACKUPSET clause. You can allow backup sets to be created on the configured default device, or direct them specifically to disk or tape

BACKUP AS BACKUPSET
DATABASE;

BACKUP AS BACKUPSET
DEVICE TYPE DISK
DATABASE;

What is the difference between the two, why there are these multiple options?

1
oracledatabase-backups

1 Answers

6
votes

To put it simply, back up as copy makes a simple copy of database files(the same way Linux cp command does), whereas backup sets is a logical entity to backup pieces as a tablespace to data files. Backup pieces are in an RMAN specific binary format.

why there are these multiple options?

To give the opportunity to perform backup and recovery more effectively and efficiently. For example, you can simply switch to an image copy of a data file avoiding, possibly time consuming, restoration process. But you cannot perform incremental backups with image copies as you be able to do so with backup sets, etc.

The choice of options, of course depends on your B&R strategy.

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