Enabling Shadow Copies for Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2008



Enabling shadow copies on a volume can be very straightforward. Administrators have more options when it comes to recovering lost or deleted data and, in many cases, can completely avoid restoring data to disk from a backup tape device or tape library. Additionally, selected users can be given the necessary rights or privileges to restore files which they have accidentally deleted. From a performance standpoint, it is best to configure shadow copies on separate disks or fast, hardware-based RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk) volumes (for example, RAID 1+0). This way, each disk performs either a read or write operation for the most part, not both. The Volume Shadow Copy Service is already installed and is automatically available using NTFS-formatted volumes.

To enable and configure shadow copies, follow the below steps:

1. Log on to the Windows Server 2008 system with an account with administrator privileges.

2. Click on Start and then All Programs and then Administrative Tools and then select Server Manager.

3. In the tree pane, double-click the Storage node and then select Disk Management.

4. In the tasks pane, scroll down to locate the desired volume, right-click the volume, and select Properties.

5. Select the Shadow Copies tab; in the Select a Volume section, click on the desired volume, and click the Settings button.

6. The Settings page permits you to choose an alternate volume to store the shadow copies. Select the desired volume to store the shadow copy and set the storage space limit for the volume. The default is usually set to 10% of the volume size.

7. After the location and maximum size are configured, click the Schedule button and define the schedule. The defaults create a shadow copy at 7:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., but for this example, set an additional shadow copy to run at 5:00 p.m.

8. Click OK to close the Schedule window, and click OK again to close the Volume Shadow Copy Settings window. The shadow copy for the originally selected volume is now enabled.

9. If essential, select the next volume and enable shadow copying; otherwise, select the enabled volume and immediately create a shadow copy by clicking the Create Now button.

10. After the shadow copies are created, click OK to close the Shadow Copies page, close the Server Manager, and log off of the server.