How To Force The Archive Bit To Be Reset

[thisguycecil]

Hello.

 

Through the comments on this forum I have learned that Retrospect does not _need_ to use the archive bit in its primary operations.

 

However, I am still trying to learn how to make the mental transition from the old "full/incremental" model to the Retrospect model. That will take some time, and my office needs a transition period where we can still try to make Retrospect behave--temporarily--according to the "old" model while we fully learn to comprehend the new model. Business stability is key here. If we don't fully understand Retrospect's backup model and it's handling of incremental backups and archive bit resets then as a business we are at risk while we are still "Retrospect newbies".

 

And that includes a thorough understanding of how the archive bit is handled, or could be made to handle manually via scripts. Specifically, I have these questions:

 

1. For the moment we are interpreting the "recycle backup" as the equivalent of our old weekly "full backup" where the media gets overwritten. How do we get a "recycle" backup to reset the archive bit on all files in a volume?

 

2. For the moment we are interpreting the "normal backup" as the equivalent of our old daily "incremental backup. For a "normal" backup, if we use the following selector criteria will the archive bit be reset: "include all files matching 'Windows archive bit is set'"?

 

3. On a broader note, I am getting the impression in this forum that Retrospect's backup model for a "normal" backup assumes that the same media is used each day until it gets filled up. Am I wrong in that understanding?

 

As a background, here is a portion of our pre-Retrospect backup strategy and media management:

 

-- DAILY_SET1: 5 different media, one for each day of the work week for daily incremental backups in the first week

 

-- WEEK1: 1 media for full backup on the first weekend

 

-- DAILY_SET2: 5 different media--not a repeat of those in DAILY_SET1--for daily incremental backups in the second week (we have an internal policy to alternate these daily sets, partly for offsite storage reasons, partly for spreading out media lifespan)

 

-- WEEK2: 1 media for fulll backup on the second weekend

 

-- DAILY_SET1

-- WEEK3

-- DAILY_SET2

-- MONTH1

-- repeat cycle

 

We really do want to get to speed on Retrospect as soon as possible. However, in our testing phase we need to fully understand how it matches up--with manual configuration--with our existing backup strategy. So I don't need to be told just to grasp Retrospect's new concepts and go with it. Our longer term plan is actually to migrate to a higher-level server version of Retrospect once we can soundly understand the Professional version.

 

Thank you in advance for your asssistance.