shadow copy vs backup

What is the difference between a shadow copy and a backup? In the case of a hard disk drive backup, the shadow copy created is also the backup. Data can be copied off the shadow copy for a restore or the shadow copy can be used for a fast recovery scenario—for example, LUN resynchronization or LUN swapping.

1. Is shadow copy a backup?
2. What is shadow copy how is it different from a typical backup?
3. Should I enable Shadow Copies?
4. How do shadow copies work?
5. How do I recover a deleted shadow copy?
6. How do I restore a shadow copy file?
7. How far back does shadow copy go?
8. Where are shadow copies stored?
9. How do I know if shadow copy is enabled?
10. How do you manage shadow copies?
11. How do I increase shadow copy storage?
12. What is Volume Shadow Copy and why is it used?

Is shadow copy a backup?

Shadow Copy (also known as Volume Snapshot Service, Volume Shadow Copy Service or VSS) is a technology included in Microsoft Windows that can create backup copies or snapshots of computer files or volumes, even when they are in use.

What is shadow copy how is it different from a typical backup?

A volume contained in a shadow copy, even in a crash-consistent state, still contains all files. A backup set created without a shadow copy would not contain all files open at the time of the backup.

Should I enable Shadow Copies?

You can enable Shadow Copies on all disks on your servers, but Shadow Copies are most useful for volumes that store user data, such as the data disks on a Windows file server that store user profile disks and network drives.

How do shadow copies work?

Shadow copies are a concept which was first introduced in Windows Server 2003. It works by Windows periodically crawling the system and looking for file changes made since the last crawl and recording the changes. These changes are indexed and stacked on top of each other which creates a history of the file/folder.

How do I recover a deleted shadow copy?

Restoring a deleted file or folder (shadow copy)

1. Navigate to the folder in which the deleted file had been stored.
2. Right-click the folder and select Properties from the bottom of the menu. ...
3. Select the version of the folder that contains the file before it was deleted, and then click View.
4. View the folder and select the file that will be recovered.

How do I restore a shadow copy file?

To recover a file, go to the folder where that particular file is stored, right-click, it and then select "Properties" from the contextual menu. Now go to the "Previous Versions" tab. You will see a list of available previous versions of the particular file that was saved in Shadow Copies.

How far back does shadow copy go?

By default we only maintain 64 shadow copies that are used by the Shadow Copies of Shared Folders feature. When this limit is reached, the oldest shadow copy will be deleted and cannot be retrieved. So in general, it will keep the latest 64 versions.

Where are shadow copies stored?

Shadow copies can be created or stored on local disk, external hard drive or network drive. Remember that Shadow Copy requires the NTFS file. Where are shadow copies stored? Shadow copies stored are stored locally, at the root of the Windows volume in the System Volume Information folder.

How do I know if shadow copy is enabled?

A.

1. Open Windows Explorer or the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Disk Management snap-in, then right-click the drive.
2. Select Properties from the context menu.
3. Select the Shadow Copies tab.
4. Under "Select a volume," select the volume for which you want to enable Shadow Copies. ...
5. Click Settings to configure VSS.

How do you manage shadow copies?

To configure shadow copies, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
2. Right-click Shared Folders, point to All Tasks, and then click Configure Shadow Copies.

How do I increase shadow copy storage?

How to increase VSS Shadow Copy Limit

1. Go to Start and then Computer to bring up a Windows Explorer view of the system. ...
2. Left-click on any hard drive once to select it then right-click on that drive. ...
3. In the Shadow Copies window, notice how, if the Used field is blank, there is no storage space currently allocated.

What is Volume Shadow Copy and why is it used?

The Volume Shadow Copy Service tells the writers to temporarily freeze application write I/O requests (read I/O requests are still possible) for the few seconds that are required to create the shadow copy of the volume or volumes. The application freeze is not allowed to take longer than 60 seconds.