Shadow Copies Are Not A Backup Replacement
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I see this all the time. People will setup Shadow Copies as a replacement for their normal backups, and then are shocked when they run out of space on their under-provisioned servers. And on top of that, they create multiple copies per day!
I need to add "Shadow Copies are not a replacement for backups!" saying to the "Snapshots are not backups!" line I use all the time.
Aside from all of that, what is this forum running? Looks pretty slick.
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@Bill-Kindle 'bout time you got here! I was getting worried! You are spot on with that. Shadow copies are great if someone loses or accidentally deletes a file. Not a replacement for a good backup or especially DR plan.
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@ajstringham Just was invited today. This platform seems really nice. Just watched the Poop Splash video
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@ajstringham Shadow copies are good for one thing IMHO, they help you restore a file faster without going to your backup tapes / disks when that quick oops happens. But beyond that, worthless.
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@Bill-Kindle Site just went live today.
I'm just impatient. 
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@Bill-Kindle Exactly. For long-term backups, etc. get an appliance of some sort. Or, get something that does a real backup. Using shadow copies for backup is like trying to define a word with the word itself in the definition.
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Shadow Copies actually are snapshots. Where they really come in handy is integrated self service file restores from within windows. And they are the underlying technology for nearly all windows backup systems today.
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@scottalanmiller This is true. They work off of VSS or Volume Shadow Service. Using Shadow Copies is not worth much. The processes behind it though are critical.
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@scottalanmiller That's actually almost exactly what I posted in response to a member over at Spiceworks who posed an issue this morning in the Windows Server Forum. They were keeping multiple copies per day, for 2 weeks. They were using the built in WSB but something happened and crashed their server. Turns out, server ran out of space and started throwing VSS errors. I've seen this now 2-3 times in the past week.
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I have seen where the self service restores really do enhance the user experience but it just seems like there are still a lot of admins out there that just don't implement it or implement it correctly.
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Excellent point: shadow copy service is critical to backups, but not reliable solely for any business continuity plan. I think most people understand that, or else your big-dollar backup service providers would be up the creek.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller That's actually almost exactly what I posted in response to a member over at Spiceworks who posed an issue this morning in the Windows Server Forum. They were keeping multiple copies per day, for 2 weeks. They were using the built in WSB but something happened and crashed their server. Turns out, server ran out of space and started throwing VSS errors. I've seen this now 2-3 times in the past week.
Sadly very common. Snapshots are hard for people to understand.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
I have seen where the self service restores really do enhance the user experience but it just seems like there are still a lot of admins out there that just don't implement it or implement it correctly.
Requires actually understanding storage.
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@scottalanmiller Agreed.
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People like to think snapshots are magic. They don't want to think about what they are or how they work.
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@scottalanmiller Yup. Walking into an environment and hearing someone say that snapshots are their backup strategy...here's what you do.
- Apply face to palm.
- Remove face from palm.
- FIRMLY apply palm to other person's face. Repeat until sense has been enabled.
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I've never actually heard of any environment doing that. I think people talk about how bad it is far more than it actually happens.
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I actually see it mentioned more on Spicewood than I've personally seen. I can count on one hand how many places I've walked into where it was the strategy. Oh man, I remember when I was first I trounced to the concept when 2003 came out. A shop I worked at deployed quite a few sbs servers and it was setup for the customers to do quick restores. I remember sitting with an engineer while he was demonstrating how it worked for us and the customer. I still think it's a useful tool.
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Yes, Spiceworks does seem to have it come up quite often.
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@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller Yup. Walking into an environment and hearing someone say that snapshots are their backup strategy...here's what you do.
- Apply face to palm.
- Remove face from palm.
- FIRMLY apply palm to other person's face. Repeat until sense has been enabled.
I sort of did this until about 6 years ago - A VMWARE expert who was helping me setup my infrastructure laid it out for me about snapshots. Whenever I talk about them now, I express that my policy is that snapshots are only allowed to live on my network for a few hours, until I am assured that I don't need to immediately go back to it. It is a fall back process, not a backup strategy.
