questions about hot backups/archived logs

We are currently not running in archive log mode. We have 13 databases running on 3 hosts (e4500) attached to 4 disk arrays (a5200), all data is striped and mirrored including redo logs (kind of like SAME).

I don't want to put archived logs on the same disk arrays (extra io contention, file systems will get fragmented, it's a vxfs), so we are thinking of possibly putting them on NFS (we have an NFS cluster) However, I have certain concerns about NFS (it being unreliable, etc), so I'd like to know if anybody else uses NFS for archived logs.

Additionally, we want to put backups on nfs, however, that will bring in extra network contetion, especially if we won't be able to compress datafiles on the fly.

Our databases range in size from 5 to 80Gig (300Gig overall), and generate up to 100G of redo per day (that includes redo wastage)

I am exploring the possibility of freeing up one disk array and using it exclusively for archived logs, but that might prove difficult, additionally, i would still need a place to backup 300G of datafiles.

Any advice appreciated.
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We use Oracle 8.1.7.4 on Solaris 2.7 boxes remove NSPAM to email Received on Thu Apr 10 2003 - 12:37:13 CDT