Jump to content
  • 0

Undelete/versioning


larsp

Question

I have recentlig migrated from MS Storage Space to Drive Pool. One day may Storage Space went offline, and the only way I could get it back online, was to add an USB2 drive as part of the Storage Space. Not really an optimal situation. 

 

I do feel a lot more secure with Drive Pool than I did with Storage Pool. If the computer fails I can extract the files from the disk. With Storage Space it was lost.

 

But after accidental deleting a file on the shared network, I came to realize that Drive Pool does not support "Volume Shadow Copy". I have now enabled shadow copying on all the disks in the pool, but to undete I have to do it on the server and try to find the disk the file was on. I think it would be quite easy to implement a "recycle bin" on CoveFS. Instead of deleting the file, just move it to /recycle and have a retention policy to clean it up? The same functionality could be used to create file versioning. 

 

The optimal would be a direct integration with windows "restore previous versions" but I think the above should be easier to implement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

Duly noted, and it may be in the future.

 

However, Volume Shadowcopy Services, which is what powers Previous Versions (and Windows Backup) is unsupported. And there is pretty much no documentation on how to add support for it without using a normal NTFS volume. Since that's not what we are doing..... adding support will be problematic at best.

 

We are aware of this limitation, and it is on our minds, but it will not be easy to add.

 

 

However, these features do remain intact on the drives in the Pool, and can be accessed that way. And deleted files can be recovered by data recovery or "undelete" utilities as well (from the drives in the pool).

 

Also, this may work:

http://www.condusiv.com/products/undelete/

 

I'm not sure, as we haven't tested it out with drivepool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I am aware that implementing Shadowcopy support can be very hard to do. This was also why I suggested just implementing a simple "recycle bin" that also works on shared folders. That should be very easy to do.

 

I have tried Condusive Undelete, and it works. Not with the Pool itself, but with the drives included in the pool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Okay, good to know about Condusive's Undelete. Thanks.

And yes, adding VSS support is no small task. And Alex has been thinking about it (if only because I keep bringing it up every so often, because I also want Previous Versions for the pool!), but he as a lot on his to-to list, and is trying to bust through that list.

 

 

But as for that recycle bin part, even the idea of implementing that part would be every bit as complicated as VSS, if not more so. And potentially dangerous (as it would likely require writing a file system filter to catch delete commands, and to differentiate them from move/delete commands).

 

 

 

However, if you use "Folder Redirection" from Server 2012 Essentials.... it does that for the user folders automatically. And I think if you manually "move" the user folders to a network share, that it does that as well (It does enable offline file cache/sync automatically, IIRC, and I think it stores deleted files from those user folders in "recycle bins" in these folders as well)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

However, these features [Previous Versions] do remain intact on the drives in the Pool, and can be accessed that way. And deleted files can be recovered by data recovery or "undelete" utilities as well (from the drives in the pool).

 

 

What happens when rebalancing occurs? When a file is moved to another disk, does its shadow copies move with it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...