ZFS snapshots can help users view or recover files on a Windows desktop by simply using the Previous Versions tab. Alan Wright explains how to recover deleted or previous versions of files on Windows in a recent blog entry.

"Shadow Copies for Shared Folders was introduced with Windows Server 2003 but subsequently renamed to Previous Versions with the release of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Windows shadow copies, or snapshots, are based on the Volume Snapshot Service (VSS) and, as the [Shared Folders part of the] name implies, are accessible to clients via SMB shares, which is good news when using the Solaris CIFS Service," he writes. " And the nice thing is that no additional configuration is required - it 'just works'."

Snapshots are accessible via the Previous Versions tab in Windows Explorer using the Shadow Copy client, which is available by default on Windows XP SP2 and later. For Windows 2000 and pre-SP2 Windows XP, the client software is available for download from Microsoft.

ZFS snapshots are read-only, point-in-time instances of a ZFS dataset, based on the same copy-on-write transactional model used throughout ZFS. ZFS snapshots can be used to recover deleted files or previous versions of files. They are space efficient because unchanged data is shared between the file system and its snapshots, which are available locally via the .zfs/snapshot directory and remotely via Previous Versions on the Windows desktop.

Wright goes on to detail how to create ZFS snapshots and view them from a Windows client. Users should note that the Previous Versions window doesn't display snapshot names: snapshots are listed by snapshot creation time, sorted in time order from most recent to oldest. Screenshot examples are provided in Wright's blog.

"Shadow Copies for Shared Folders provides a straightforward way for users to view or recover files from ZFS snapshots. The Windows desktop provides an easy to use, intuitive GUI and no configuration is required to use or access previous versions of files or folders," he concludes.

More Information

Using Windows Previous Versions to access ZFS Snapshots - Wright's blog entry

OpenSolaris Community: ZFS

ZFS Learning Center

Introduction to Shadow Copies of Shared Folders

Shadow Copies for Shared Folders Client [...read more...]

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Other articles in the Windows section of Volume 138, Issue 3: Creating and Accessing ZFS Snapshots from a Windows Desktop (this article) See all archived articles in the Windows section.

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