Question about Backup Exec

[frank_c1]

 Hi there, just a quick question about Backup Exec.  I was wondering when a backup is in progress does every file that gets backed become flagged as accessed?  The reason being is that I have a temporary drive that is supposed to be cleared out once a month via a script that runs automatically at a desired time.  The script looks for files that haven't been accessed for more than a month and if it finds them the file(s) are deleted.

Thanks

[Hemant_Jain]

You should look for modified time and not acccessed time, because on WIndows, it is difficult to copy a file without changing the access time. So, you may want to look for modifying your script to look for modified time and delete the files which have not been modified. Also, if this is Backup Exec 2010, you may want to check BE Archiving option, which can help you archive old files, based on various rules you specify in Backup Exec.

Please mark it a solution, if this is useful.
Thanks

[BernyR]

 hi frank,
There is an archive bit for every file which gets reset after a full backup (or incremental backup). If you are doing differential backups those won't reset the archive bit.

Hope that helps
Berny

[frank_c1]

 Hi, Yep this is true however would this constitute to the file being flagged as accessed after the archive bit has been reset?

Thanks

[BernyR]

 Not sure exactly what you mean. If a file that has been backed up and the archive bit reset afterwards, then gets accessed, this bit won't be touched. It will only be set again if there is a change done to the file.

Berny

[frank_c1]

  Berny, I have a script that runs to clear out files and folders from a Temporary drive that I created.  The script checks for files and folders that haven't been accessed for more than a month,if it finds them it deletes them.  I'm wasn't sure if the files and folders on the drive would show up has being accessed every week after the full backup has run and reset the archive bit.  If this was the case then the script would be no use because all the files and folders would be getting accessed before the months deletion period.  Hope this makes a little more sense.

Thanks

Frank

[BernyR · Accepted solution]

 hi frank,

OK, I understand now. I've just run a test and backed up some data which wasn't accessed for some time, then checked the access date, and that hadn't changed, so your script should be OK.

Berny