What is Shadow Copies of Shared Folders?

Are you preparing for IT certification? With practice questions, study notes, interactive quizzes, tips and technical articles, uCertify PrepKits ensure that you get a solid grasp of core technical concepts to ace your certification exam in first attempt.

What is Shadow Copies of Shared Folders?

Rating:

Shadow Copies of Shared Folders is a component of the intelligent file storage technologies in Microsoft Windows Server 2003. A Windows Server 2003-based file server can efficiently and transparently maintain a set of previous versions of all files on the selected volumes by using shadow copies. Shadow copies are available only on file servers running Windows Server 2003. They provide an end user-accessible means to recover from accidental document deletion or inadvertent document revisions by accessing point-in-time copies of documents and folders. End users can access the file or folder by using a separate client add-on program, which enables them to view the file in Windows Explorer. The client program integrates seamlessly with the client computer and enables the user to view the previous version of the file.

Shadow Copies of Shared Folders helps to reduce data loss by creating shadow copies of files or folders that are stored on network file shares at pre-determined time intervals. A shadow copy is a previous version of the file or folder at a specific point in time. It is a low-cost way to recover from many file-related accidents caused by human errors, such as accidentally deleting, corrupting, or editing a file. It provides an end user-accessible tool to restore documents that are not recoverable with the file recovery capabilities. It also helps to recover files that were not saved using the "Saved as" command. It reduces the demand of administrators for restoring accidentally deleted or overwritten files and the cost of recovering single or multiple files.

Shadow copies cannot protect against data loss due to media failures. Therefore, shadow copies cannot replace the current backup and the archive or business recovery system, but they can help to simplify restore procedures. Recovering data from shadow copies reduces the number of times needed to restore data from tape. Shadow copies are created on a scheduled basis.

Shadow Copies of Shared Folders helps end users to manage their own files and fix mistakes without rebuilding the file. Shadow copies work best when the server stores user files such as documents, spreadsheets, and graphics files.

Note: Shadow copies should not be used to provide access to previous versions of applications or e-mail databases.

Rating: