Exclude old archives from backup?

For the following scenarios, skip this section:

• You have recently installed Data Archive.

• You are upgrading and you are already doing incremental backups.

If you are upgrading and plan to switch to incremental backups for your nightly backups, follow the steps in this section.

Before converting to incremental backups, ensure that your first incremental backup is not extremely large. If you have backed up archives outside of normal scheduled backups, the Backup Time (as displayed by the piartool -al command) might be listed as Never. These archives are included in the first incremental backup (or if the archives are marked as read-only, they are included in every subsequent incremental backup). If you have backed up these old archives by other means (such as by shutting down the Data Archive server and making a copy of the archive files), consider excluding the old archives from the backup.

1. To determine the archives that would be included with the first incremental backup, run the command:

   piartool.exe -backup -identify -type incremental -verbose

2. Examine the list. If you want to exclude any archives from your incremental backup or if any archives are marked as read only, identify the most recent archive in the list that you want to exclude. The most recent archive has the most recent End Time (as displayed by the piartool -al command). Use this end time in the following -identify command.

   piartool.exe -backup -identify -type incremental -verbose
   -excludeArchivesWithEndTimesOlderThan EndTime

3. Examine the list. It should not include the archives that you excluded. Use the same end time to modify the command line of the scheduled task that you create in Customize the default backup.