Ever since Microsoft adopted its new ‘silent treatment’ development process, barely any news about the next version of Windows leaves Redmond. Now though, we have WinRumors stating that for Windows 8, Microsoft is finally going to do something visibly useful for desktop users with Shadow Copy, a feature first introduced in Windows XP.
Shadow Copy was first introduced in Windows XP, but there it could only handle non-persistent backups; persistent backups were then created by NTBackup in BKF file format. This cumbersome method was abandoned for Windows Server 2003, when Shadow Copy gained the ability to store persistent backups (512 simultaneously per volume) which would remain accessible even across reboots.
Windows Vista made further use of Shadow Copy with the Backup and Restore Center, which replaced NTBackup. Unlike NTBackup, the Backup and Restore Center’s full system backups are block-based, which is a lot more efficient. Full system backups can be incremental.
Starting with Vista, System Restore also started using Shadow Copy. You can then access individual files within the restore points created by System Restore using the Previous Versions tab in in a file’s properties dialog. However, since you can only access backups within Restore Points which are made once a day (or when told to do so), Previous Versions doesn’t store a copy of each file when it’s changed.
Shadow Copy is one of those Windows features which makes me want to hit my head against a wall for three days because I just don’t understand why Microsoft doesn’t make more pervasive use of it throughout the operating system. It has had the technology for incremental per-file backups for ages – whether on local disks (not useful for backups but very useful for file versioning) or remote or USB disks – and yet, Microsoft has, so far, refused to make this more accessible.
It would seem like I can finally stop banging my head against the wall, since WinRumors is reporting that Microsoft is finally putting a usable graphical user interface on top of Shadow Copy, which Microsoft is calling History Vault. It allows you to easily pick a location for your Shadow Copies, and you can share that target within your HomeGroup.
What WinRumors doesn’t make clear, sadly, is whether or not it is still dependent on fixed once-per-day restore points; i.e., if file versioning has become more useful by allowing individual versions of a file, created as said files changes, to exist regardless of the restore point schedule. This is crucial for me – a nice new interface is good to have, but if it doesn’t solve the core limitations of what we currently have in Windows 7 than it doesn’t really do anything to improve it besides making it prettier.
WinRumors is bringing this as some sort of new feature, and positions it as a copy of Time Machine – which makes no sense. Shadow Copy is a lot older than Time Machine, and I hope with all my heart that Microsoft doesn’t put that insanely overdone and ridiculous Time Machine user interface on top of Shadow Copy.
Shadow Copy is also a little more advanced on a technical level; Time Machine is a pure back-up solution through and through and provides file versioning through the stored backups. These backups must be made on a second drive, which makes perfect sense since it is a backup solution. However, laptops have just one drive, and are carried around all the time without a second drive present. This means that the file versioning features of Time Machine – insanely useful – are mostly useless on many laptops, since Time Machine can’t create backups (where these file versions are drawn from) on the same drive. Shadow Copy does allow this, and as such, its potential is a lot greater than time Machine.
In Lion, Apple will be implementing something similar to Shadow Copy, however, in that Lion will save versions of files as they change on the local drive. Forget all the iOS carry-overs in Lion – I’m most excited about autosave and file versioning in Lion. I’m hoping WinRumors’ story means Windows 8 will use Shadow Copy to its fullest potential, bringing similar features in an accessible way to Windows users.
Anyone who cares about access to this technology will also have access to a “techy” person who can partition their drive for them, or indeed be able to do it themselves. And of course, in a similar vein, there have been second internal hard drive / SSD options for the Pro level MacBooks for some time. And yes, I do realise you said “many laptops”, but for a balanced view this is as important a point.
If I were going to create backups, I’d want to do it on a different physical drive anyway.
I’m so glad someone else thought that. Backing up data to the same drive is just idiocy to start with. Let alone the issues of having your backup in the same location, (the laptop itself).
“I need to back up part of my hard drive to another part of my hard drive. Just in case my hard drive fails. It’s also fine if someone steals my laptop because i back everything up.”
I’d say it is more like 4/5 Idiocy. If the drive gets damaged (or is stolen) then you are out of luck. However, backups to other parts of the same drive do provide redundancy against file corruption or sector damage.
Accidentally delete a folder and not notice it. Accidentally paste garbage into critical document and save it without noticing. Wait several weeks until your backup program creates a new baseline. The data is gone, no matter where it was stored.
Not with shadow copies though.
Well, I’m just saying that if I’m going to back something up, I’m not going to put it on the same physical drive it was originally stored on. I mean, I realize it’s better than nothing, but still not the ideal
Volume shadow copy, which this history vault most likely uses (windows 8 is not out), just makes snapshots of the file system in question. If you consider a snapshot (be it from ZFS, btrfs, volume shadow copy, whatever) to save your a** in the event of complete failure, then you deserve whatever happens to your data.
And I am just saying that there are other reasons to back things up, other than to prevent against physical failure of the media.
There’s more than one level of backups. For example, keeping filesystem snapshots or multiple versions of a file helps with accidental deletions or local file corruption. Especially if they (snaps) happen often enough. These can be on the same disk, or on a separate disk.
Then there’s recovery (what most people consider “backups”) that allow you restore files if your entire harddrive dies.
Obviously, you don’t want the latter stored on the same drive. But there’s nothing wrong with the former being on the same drive.
Depends what you want from your backup. If you just want to be able to restore old versions of your files then it’s not so stupid. If you’re backing up in case of data loss then it is a bit.
Solaris had this with a nice GUI built into nautilus years ago…MS should just throw in the towel and implement ZFS
Apple tried ZFS and gave up, Microsoft seems to me even less likely. 🙂
Edited 2011-03-31 11:38 UTC
Chief architect of Apple HFS+ quit and is now starting up a new company to try to bring ZFS to Mac OS X. The reason? Because ZFS gives Data Integrity – whereas other filesystems do not protect your data against bit rot, etc.
Read more here:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/03/how-zfs-is-slowly-making-…
On Solaris, ZFS allows you to snapshot either home directory, or your system disk. You can keep numerous copies of your documents so you can go back in time. No fancy program is needed, this is just basic ZFS functionality. Only changes are saved, so you save lots of space with ZFS.
If you do several snapshots of your system install, you can boot into any of them via GRUB, and discard the snapshot that caused troubles.
I think I know how ZFS works.
I think I’ll just wait for Linux to get Btrfs production ready and use that though.
Although I do have think the ‘misuse’ of these tree-like structures for filesystems, like ZFS, Reiser and Btrfs do, is a bit asking for throuble, it feels kind of fragile.
It complicates things in a big way so it takes a long time to get it in a stable state. Btrfs uses the most flexible and advanced version of such a structure, I think, which gives it great possibilities.
As I already run Linux on servers, desktops and pretty much everything else Btrfs is the logical choice.
I’m looking forward to being able to use Ceph as well (distributed storage build around the use of Btrfs).
Edited 2011-04-01 15:22 UTC
It seems to me that you do not know ZFS? There is only one reason to use ZFS; it protects your data. Other filesystems, such as XFS, JFS, ReiserFS, etc does not protect your data. Neither does Hardware raid.
Instead you talk about data structures? Who cares which data structure ZFS uses? It protects your data. Period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Data_Integrity
I doubt BTRFS protects your data, because no one succeeds in protecting your data (except ZFS) so why should BTRFS succeed? ZFS’ purpose to protect your data, BTRFS purpose is for speed, performance and other fancy stuff – not protect your data.
So, you clearly know nothing at all about BTRFS.
BTRFS works the same as ZFS in that regard. They both hash the block contents, and use that to detect data errors. Then, IF you have redundancy available in the storage pool, they can repair the data. If not, you’ll at least know that the data has become corrupt.
In fact, you can think of BTRFS as ZFS for Linux. It has the same feature set, the same basic architecture, and the same capabilities.
The only real difference is that BTRFS is more advanced (newer data structures, which allow simpler design, and maybe more flexibility), but ZFS is more mature (better tools).
Just what is so inaccessible about Shadow copies? It’s right there in your context menu. Are you too lazy or dumb to never right click on a file? Then maybe the author hasn’t been using Windows.
You cannot **create** versions as you wish, you cannot manage them, you cannot store them for as long as you want: you have no say in what the OS does with versioned files… even OpenOffice allows you to do that with your odt files, except versions are stored as file contents instead of being stored at the filesystem level as an ADS for instance. You cannot have any versioned files on a volume which you have no restore points on. This, I can confirm; I even planned on writing a blog post on how Microsoft was limiting the OS.
Apparently, you’re the only one to have noticed it’s in the context menu… Guess who’s trolling. Oh, sorry, I just meant “guess who is dumb and too lazy to click the menu item and check whether ANY file can be versioned AT WILL before labeling others as lazy or dumb”.
First of all, the feature is inaccessible from the home editions of Vista and Windows 7. The GUI is simply missing, even though the underlying functionality is still there. Like remote desktop and domain support, it’s considered to be a business feature.
Second, it’s controlled automatically. it is not intended to keep YOUR data secure – it’s intended for system restore points. The OS will make snapshots whenever it feels like it, and delete them whenever it feels like. Taking a snapshot of your data is an nintentional side- effect. Time machine, on the other hand, takes snapshots at regular intervals, and keeps them until you run out of space. It’s actually designed to keep your data safe, and that’s what it does.
Also, snapshots are NOT backups.
Not to mention the limited number of available snapshots. Time machine takes one every 15 minutes. At that rate, you’d only be able to keep a week’s worth of snapshots with VSS.
Finally, my Mum managed to work out Time Machine by herself, but couldn’t grasp VSS if her life depended on it.
Two things,
It’s there in win7 home edition.
I had lot of issues getting Time Machine to work while I could use Previous Versions with no issues.
I’t perfect if you want to be able to revert back to an older version of a document without full version-control.
It would be interesting if you can make a backup (to another drive) of both the actual and old versions of a file.
Otherwise, filesystem snapshots like ZFS are far superior.
I can see the headlines come Christmas!
“Shadow copies – Windows 8 selling like hotcakes!”
Which year?