Optimizing restore performance with MAXPIECESIZE

Question

Hi,
Currently I don't have a limit on the max size of backup pieces, backupsets or number of files per backupset. So I performed a full database backup and transferred it to tape. Then I tried to restore only a small datafile, but I noticed that the whole backuppiece containing all the datafiles was read from tape although I needed only a small portion of it. (The size of the whole database is 70GB and the restored datafile is 3GB)
Then I performed another test and this time I set the MAXPIECESIZE parameter to 1G. The restore process read only the backuppieces it needed to restore this small datafile and the restore was much faster.
My question is: Are there any drawbacks using such an approach - maybe a longer restore time of the whole database, or some other penalty to pay somewhere else?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
Regards,
Jure

Answer 1

Thank to both of you for the answers.
@mrmessin
Actually I haven't measured the whole backup time before and after setting MAXPIECESIZE. But even if the time for the backup will be slightly longer, that's not a problem for me. I prefer a slightly longer backup and a much faster restore. Currently I'm using only one sbt channel - I'll investigate how many tape drives do we have to see if's feasible to use multiple channels.
@tychos
I'll try to perform a restore of the whole database to see if wind/rewind will have any impact. I was also considering the usage of FILESPERSET - maybe I'll use it instead of MAXPIECESIZE, as you suggested.
Regards,
Jure