HP OpenVMS Systems

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Selective backup

The Question is:

When doing a BACKUP/IMAGE disk tape, can I use the
/EXCLUDE qualifier on the input specifier (disk) to
exclude some files from being written to the tape?
I've been asked to store some files on the system disk
that need to be backed up much more frequently than the
normal system files and it is a significant amount of
blocks I'm being asked to store. Is this OK or super bad?
This is also the reason for my first question; I was
going to back up these "non-system" files as part of my
regularly-scheduled "user-disk" backup procedure.

The Answer is:

    Note that the use of the /IMAGE qualifier as specified in the base note
    does not allow input file selection.  The entire disk will be copied.
    A better solution would be to mark the unwanted files /NOBACKUP.  While
    this would "save" the file onto tape, the saved portion would only
    consist of the name and allocation of the file not its contents.  This
    is how system pagefiles are "saved".  It makes no sense to save the
    contents of a pagefile, but the size and name are required.

   Mark the files SET FILE/NOBACKUP, perform the BACKUP, then mark the
   files with /BACKUP as appropriate.

   This avoids copying files to the backup tapes unnecessarily.