Shadow Copies

[PurePeon]

Does anyone have any experience with this service in a large scale network? I'm talking 200+ users...so semi large? How well does it work?

 

[spyordie007]

It works very well. My only suggestion is that you keep the frequency of the snapshots low and ensure there is plenty of disk space.

 

[PurePeon]

Can you clarify the 64 copies limit? Does it do 64 copies on 1 file per volume or is it 64 files per volume. Does that mean only 64 people will have shadow copies while the rest of the people are SOL?

 

[spyordie007]

Is it 64? I thought it was less than that (cant remember off hand).

Whatever the case may be it's a limit per-file. As I understand it this limitation is in place because the shadow copies actually track bit-level changes; so if you were to retrieve a file w/ 64 shadow copies the system would need to get the 1st one and than apply every subsiquent change before presenting it.

The times that it is most useful is when users go and accidentally delete something they didnt mean to (which seems to happen all to often). No more pulling backup tapes for incidental recoveries!

I suggest playing with it in the lab before deploying it. When you do deploy it also start with a low snapshot frequency and work your way up (as opposed to the other way around).

 

[spyordie007]

Good info:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsSe...1-d224-47ee-8f6e-65103fb63e231033.mspx

Looks like the 64 shadow copy limit is per volume.

 

[PurePeon]

Thanks Spy!! I've read that article already and many more. I was just wondering how it actually worked if it was per file or per volume. Cause keeping 64 copies of data on 1 volume isn't much. But if it's per file than that's way better.

 

[spyordie007]

64 copies per volume is quite a bit. If you had 2 snapshots getting taken a day that would still be 32 days worth....