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Backup and restore guidelines
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Backup devices

Backup devices are logical nodes that the backup applications use to connect to the physical storage media. The term device does not refer to hardware equipment. A backup device can be a file, a tape drive, or a named pipe.

In addition to physical device names (file names and tape device names), which Windows uses to identify the devices, you can also assign logical device names (aliases) to backup devices.

File devices

File (or disk) devices are the same as regular operating system files. You can refer to them using fully qualified paths for local files or use the universal naming convention (UNC) names for remote files.

Tape devices

Tape devices connect to tape drives. Tape devices on Windows use this format (case insensitive):

\\.\Tape
<n>
where <n> represents the device number starting with 0.

For example, the first tape device on a computer is \\.\Tape0.

Although the tape device name may look like it conforms to UNC standards, it does not. Syntax such as \\Servername\Tape<n> does not work.

In Windows, tape devices cannot be shared as network resources like other random-access storage devices. Many applications (including NTBackup and SQL Server) do not support remote tape devices. However, you can always pull remote data to a local tape device as long as you have sufficient access rights.

Named pipe devices

Named pipe devices enable you to redirect the output. Instead of writing to a file or a tape, a backup application writes data to a pipe. At the other end of the pipe, a pipe server reads and processes the data. Independent solution providers can use pipes to extend the functionality of existing backup programs. For example, a pipe can support remote tape devices.