On Tue, May 17, 2005 at 02:16:38PM -0400, John Young wrote:
> Folks,
> 
>    If you are using vtapes on a RAID for your backup
> media, is there any point to also using a holding disk?
> I can easily understand the use of a holding disk if
> you are using real tapes but am not sure what it buys
> you if you are using vtapes.  Any comments?

Parallelism.  With no holding disk, dumps are done in serial to
the vtape, just as they would be for a real tape.