RE: incremental backups

He's right that it is one more file and it takes longer, but everything is a trade-off. Full backups take more time, more backup space and more network bandwidth if you're backing up over a network than incrementals, plus require much more I/O on your production database (compared to incrementals with change-tracking file in 10g). Applying an incremental will certainly be faster than applying a bunch of redo, but not as fast as starting with a more recent full backup. In 10g there is also the option of incrementally updated backups - a hybrid that is probably the best of both worlds if I understand it correctly but I haven't actually tested it yet. I wouldn't worry too much about the incremental backup getting corrupted, shouldn't be a frequent occurrence - not any more likely than your full backup or archive log backups getting corrupted. I've been using incrementals for years and love them.  

Regards,
Brandon

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