[Nottingham] Backups without updating atime?

[Joshua Lock]

2009/8/5 Martin <martin at ml1.co.uk>:
> Folks,
>
> Any way to run backups such that atime isn't updated?

/me shrugs

I'd imagine so...

>
> Or is mounting "noatime" the only way to go? (Why have atime at all??)

I've never been sold on atime, do *you* need it?
Some mail clients rely on it (or relatime), so if you're backing up
data for those clients you probably want it, otherwise just mount your
backup disk noatime.

You could (potentially) lessen the impact of atime updates with a new
kernel with the updated relatime heuristics:

"add a further heuristic to the relatime behaviour. With it, the atime
of a file will be updated if it's older than mtime, older than ctime
or (and this is the important one) more than 24 hours in the past."
[1]

1. http://mjg59.livejournal.com/109286.html

Cheers,
Joshua
-- 
Joshua Lock