There is no absolute "right" answer to your question, except "it depends on your environment".
We are also TSM 4.1.3 on AIX 4.3.3. There is no size limit I know of to the files that TSM uses for DB, log, and storage pool volumes; you can make them larger than 2 GB. However, the JFS filesystem where you are defining the files must have the "large file enabled" attribute, otherwise AIX will not let you create a file larger than 2 GB. The number of files you use for the DB is mostly a performance/throughput issue. TSM will start multiple I/O's to your DB (and storage pool) volumes. So it is better to have multiple files than one big file, so TSM can do multiple operations in parallel. However, if you have MANY files, and they are all on the same PHYSICAL disk volumes, eventually you will actually SLOW DOWN performance because you are causing contention at the physical device level trying to do too many I/Os to a single device. So I try to think of it in terms of "how many concurrent operations do I want to occur on that device?". But even that issue gets fuzzy if you are using high-end RAID with CACHE in the controller, as much of the I/O becomes asynchronous and is done to cache instead of being dependent on the physical device rotation any more. So, "it depends" on your environment. For example: One of my TSM servers has about 400 clients, it is VERY busy and does enormous amounts of I/O; I try to watch AIX iostat sometimes and just see how much I/O is occuring to each of my physical drives, and how much time TSM is spending on I/O wait, and I think in those terms when I'm putting new TSM volumes in use. My other TSM server is NOT a very busy server, and backup throughput is just not an issue. On that system, I don't think twice about where I put the files, or how many - it just doesn't matter! Hope that helps provide some perspective... ************************************************************************ Wanda Prather The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab 443-778-8769 [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think" - Scott Adams/Dilbert ************************************************************************ -----Original Message----- From: Yahya Ilyas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 8:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: size of individual database/log files for TSM Hi We are using TSM server Version 4, Release 1, Level 3.0 on AIX 4.3.3 I added another 35 GB disk to the server, and want to increase database and log size for TSM by defining new dbv and logv volumes. Currently all the .dsm files for database and log are 2 GB each. I wanted to know if I should create files larger than 2 GB, is there a size limit to these files? Also having 12 - 15 files of 2 GB each is better or fewer larger size files for database and log. Thanks > ----- > Yahya Ilyas > Systems Programmer Sr > Systems Integration & Management > Information Technology > Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-0101 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Phone: (480) 965-4467 > >
