[Info-vax] Backing up scattered files

[FrankS]

On Friday, April 6, 2012 11:10:15 AM UTC-4, Rich Jordan wrote:
> Time and system impact.  It takes too long, and we can't leave the
> 'writers' quiesced that long.

I had another thought on this, which should work nicely.

You have a bunch of files in various directories scattered across a given disk.  Create a new directory tree (for example, DISK$MINE:[BACKUP...]) which contains a directory of the same name as each of the directories which contain files of interest.

Using a series of Backup commands, do a disk-to-disk backup of all the files into their respective directories within the [BACKUP...] tree.  This should go quickly, and I can think of lots of ways of driving it from a single command procedure using a single text file with the full path to the files of interest.

Once that series of Backups is completed, you can resume work on the production files while doing a disk-to-tape backup of the [BACKUP...] tree.

Restores would be the opposite.  Do a restore from tape-to-disk to the [BACKUP...] tree, then disk-to-disk to the production directory while the production system is (temporarily) offline.

P.S. - I usually get paid for this sort of thing.  :)