February 26, 2007 at 1:53 am
Morning,
My back ups seem to be working fine. However when I look at the .BAK files in Windows Explorer I sometimes see an A in the Attributes column.
Any ideas what this is? Probably a stupid question - when you know the answer! 😉 BOL has not produced any clues.
Thanks in advance.
Colin
February 26, 2007 at 2:38 am
Colin,
an A attribute for a file means that it is an archive file.
Markus
[font="Verdana"]Markus Bohse[/font]
February 26, 2007 at 2:44 am
It is the most recent 2 or 3 days of BAK files that show an A. Older files do not. What would account for that?
Thanks
Colin
February 26, 2007 at 11:13 pm
A form of backup has been done for these files that used to have the Archive attribute set ?
Most backup programs will reset the A attribute.
So, potentially, you do a SQL Server backup - new files are created (.BAK) with the Archive attribute set. Some network/local task backup job is executed at a later time and the archive bit is reset.
Your job will be to find out how the machine is being backed up - a different task to SQL backup.
DB
The systems fine with no users loggged in. Can we keep it that way ?br>
February 27, 2007 at 1:47 am
The "A" attribute on a Windows file indicates that it is "ready for archiving". This is a (basic) feature of Windows to support incremental backup: when a file is changed or created, Windows will set its "A" bit.
When a backup is made, the backup tool will reset the "A" attribute of all files that it has handled. This way, it knows which files have changed since the latest backup and it can use the remaining "A" attributes to make an incremental one.
It is an attribute of the underlying file system, independent of SQLserver.
February 27, 2007 at 2:14 am
Thank you so much. Good, clear answer. Looks like being a good day!
Thanks
Colin
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