In general, dumping to a file or disk is not recommended. If the disk or computer containing that file crashes, there may be no way to recover the dumps. On UNIX and PC systems, the entire master database dump must fit into a single volume. On these systems, dumping to a file or disk is your only option if the master database is too large to fit on a single tape volume, unless you have a second Adaptive Server that can issue sp_volchanged requests.
Dumps to a file or disk can be copied to tape for offline storage, but these tapes must be copied back to an online file before they can be read by Adaptive Server. Backup Server cannot directly read a dump that is made to a disk file and then copied to tape.
