Apparatus, systems, and methods may operate to taking a snapshot of an origin volume in conjunction with a backup process in response to receiving a snapshot request by a snapshot service. A persistent time stamp associated with the creation time of the snapshot may be recorded on the origin volume. The persistent time stamp is accessible to the file system process associated with the origin volume in most embodiments. If access to a file is requested, the time the file was last modified may be compared with the persistent time stamp, and if the file modified time is earlier than the persistent time stamp, the file's archive bit can be reset. Otherwise, the archive bit is not reset. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.