Windows 10 File History/Backup System

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Rickles

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#267981 21-Feb-2020 16:02

I am trying to find answers to a couple of questions about the File History feature of Windows 10 … also trying to convince a number of (mainly senior) users to at least use this basic backup service if nothing else.

1: When setting the time for "Daily" file backups, at what time of the day is this actually carried out?

2: Are the backups incremental, or a new file altogether?

3: Is an individual file backup triggered by some sort of scan to see if a file is altered?

Thanks.

ech3lon

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#2425130 21-Feb-2020 18:51

1: When setting the time for "Daily" file backups, at what time of the day is this actually carried out?z
Not sure; but if my understanding is correct, because it works by taking snapshot of the file/folder content, the state of file/folder just before the first change of that day will be "saved".
If you choose daily then it's possible subsequent changes during the day will not be versioned (backed up).

2: Are the backups incremental, or a new file altogether?
Versioned (maybe differential?) based on time and changed status, you can set maximum age or diskspace before oldest gets removed.
It does not take space on the disk if there are no changes to the file/folder.
Previous version(s) can be restored to original location or saved into another location.

3: Is an individual file backup triggered by some sort of scan to see if a file is altered?
It is done at the operating system level (file system) by taking a snapshot of file (content), search for "Shadow Copy" on how it works.

K8Toledo

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#2425187 21-Feb-2020 22:01

File History is System Restore renamed, and speaking from a Field Engineer's perspective it is a next to useless feature.

K8Toledo

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#2425212 22-Feb-2020 01:08

K8Toledo:

File History is System Restore renamed, and speaking from a Field Engineer's perspective it is a next to useless feature.

Yes, the first part of this statement is incorrect but I'm unable to edit the post. :P

My own personal view on backups is that regular daily backups for average users with Noel Leeming grade hardware are a total waste of system resources & lead HDD's to an early death, in particular WD due to high load/unload count.

If redundancy is truly required there are better 3rd party alternatives. My opinion only, not stated.

freitasm

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#2425336 22-Feb-2020 12:08

But seriously, redundancy is not the same as backup.

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Rickles

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#2425834 23-Feb-2020 11:12

Update: Did some testing and observation -

Update process 'timing' appears to be controlled by when either the first or subsequent manually invoked updates are done. e.g. I did a manual update at 7:45pm and set frequency to 'every 12 hours' …. then manipulated a couple of specific files (one was a change, the other a new addition to a Folder). Result was the changed/updated file and Folder items were included with new dates 12 hours later.

This confirms that the process is indeed at least a reasonable, basic back-up system.

Also noted that a file or folder is not included if being worked on, viz. if the associated application/program is open, but will be backed up (at the pre-set time) once it is closed. I tested this using Outlook and watching the .PST file.

As for what triggers a backup, I'd opine that it is by a date/time combination scan because watching the update take place (made file changes then hit manual update) was very fast compared with the original set-up process.

K8Toledo

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#2426699 25-Feb-2020 01:28

freitasm: But seriously, redundancy is not the same as backup.

Yes I agree with you and did not mean to imply that it was.

File History is a type of redundancy as multiple copies of a file/folder (user profile) are held in more than one location, (which sounds like a backup to me...but I know what you mean :)).

Edit: @freitasm Data Redundancy isn't restricted to Database systems although most developers would probably disagree.