What do you exclude from antivirus scans?

[zag]

I've had a few file servers fail in the last few years I have finally realised its probably be scanning every single file on the network over and over again destroying the hard disk. By default Symantec auto protect scans everything on the file server and the statistics show millions of file read cycles.

So what do people exclude from the auto protect on their file servers? I have removed the roaming profiles which has made a massive difference but was also thinking of excluding doc and xls files. Is this a step too far? The only virus's we have had in the logs in the last 3 years are .exe and .dll ones so I'm hoping to still catch these.

[mattx]

I've had a few file servers fail in the last few years I have finally realised its probably be scanning every single file on the network over and over again destroying the hard disk. By default Symantec auto protect scans everything on the file server and the statistics show millions of file read cycles.

So what do people exclude from the auto protect on their file servers? I have removed the roaming profiles which has made a massive difference but was also thinking of excluding doc and xls files. Is this a step too far? The only virus's we have had in the logs in the last 3 years are .exe and .dll ones so I'm hoping to still catch these.

I very much doubt the constant scanning of your HDs from your AV app is the cause of your HD failures. There are a great deal of other factors to consider.
Also if this was the case I would assume that servers and HDs all over the globe would be failing at a monster rate.
The only files I exclude from our daily scan are the ones which sometimes pull up a false positive. Everything gets scanned otherwise.
I would certainly say that removing .doc and .xls is a step too far. The majority of macro viruses are held within .doc files and there are quite a few .xls viruses out there too.
I would even go as far as stating that by removing the scanning of those files you are playing with fire.

[Jona]

It's not if a hard disk will fail it's when....

Definatly don't exclude .doc or .xls from being scanned altogether as there is lots of virus potential with in these files (macro's are just the start).

Cheers
Jona

[elsiegee40]

In my experience hard rives fail when they want to and usually when it is most inconvenient. I haven't heard AV being blamed for this before.

I'm with the others on this; exclude the bare minimum and don't exclude .doc and .xls!

[mac_shinobi]

whats symantec like versus avast or nod32 or mcaffee like in terms of scanning or monitoring the file system for viruses in files etc ?

not sure if symantec av on a server is the same as what there client av apps are like ?

personally im not too keen on symantec products ( personal preference ) at least thus far.

[plock]

I'm with you Gecko, I'm not a big fan of Symantec either.

I for one have never heard AV causing Hard Drive failures? As stated, don't exclude .doc and .xls!

[mac_shinobi]

I'm with you Gecko, I'm not a big fan of Symantec either.

I for one have never head AV causing Hard Drive failures? As stated, don't exclude .doc and .xls!

with you on the docs and xls and mdb's ( ms database crud lol )

[plock]

Indeed - MDB's are a bloody nightmare... synchronisation failures! :P

Spelling correction in above post “head” to “heard”! hehe