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I have folders in my server with over 60GBs of data across ~160,000+ files. The files in this folder change regularly. I need to be able to make a backup copy of the files in this folder at a given point in time. Later, after updates have been made, I need to be able to only copy the updated/new files within these folders.

Is is possible to use the Volume Snapshot Service to identify modified files in a drive/folder ?

Ameer Deen
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  • Why don't you use backup software to do this, that is what backup software does after all. – joeqwerty Nov 18 '13 at 16:20
  • Makes sense, however, the first backup takes over 14 hours and the second run of backup using incremental still takes over an hour or more and restoring it will require a full followed by all it's incrementals and can be slow. I was wondering to see if there was something quicker analogous to differencing disks where I can isolate changes and apply. – Ameer Deen Nov 20 '13 at 03:20

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I would doubt it, only because it runs on a schedule, not continuously checking files. What if a file gets updated 10x and then deleted in between the VSS schedule? I don't think VSS would know about it.

But for copying updated/new files, you can use multiple tools such as robocopy (which only grabs the new/changed files anyway), or do an incremental or differential backup with a backup utility.

TheCleaner
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  • Understood. Robocopy and Windows Backup were still slow (see reply comment to joeqwerty on question). Was hoping there was something faster. I'm testing out a few options and I'll let post what worked best, thanks for the reply. – Ameer Deen Nov 20 '13 at 03:52
  • What's the end goal? You seem to want to be able to keep the updated/newer files, but for what? If it's accidental change/deletion you can setup your VSS schedule to take hourly snapshots if that's what you need. It won't copy them over to a new drive/server but it will get you decent RPO. Maybe if you state your end goal in mind we could point you in the right direction. – TheCleaner Nov 20 '13 at 13:59