Thanks for the replies. The problem is slightly more difficult. I am using symantec backupexec. I back up servers to disk, using open-e nas boxes as the destination. the open e and hardware work well.

However backupexec should expire the disk files when they are over their retention age and purge then from the symantec database and delete them from the nas box. However it appears that the the backup sets are being removed from the database but not being removed from the nas box.

So this means that my 120Tb nas boxes are filling up with expired backup sets. Tech support at symantec are being less than useful and just suggest I delete all the old files, with out knowing what is in side the archives. So I need to scan the archives before I delete them. As I have over 100 tb of archive files I dont want to scan them all. So my plan was to create another share. Present this to my backup server and them move the symantec archive files into it. Then just scan this smaller subset of files. This will allow me to sensibly confirm I can delete the files. But I will still need to transfer 30-50 tb of files. the synchronization will not allow me to almost randomly pick out files. This choice will need to be done manually but as it is only 100 -150 files it is a nuisance but can be done

Peter