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Shadow Copies on Folder Level

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Did you ever wish that Shadow Copies could be enabled on a folder instead of your entire volume?

Well, when I was watching Ed Liberman's excellent video course for exam 70-410, he showed how a volume could be mounted in an empty NTFS folder, but added that he had never heard anyone come up with a good reason to do so.

Well, that's when I saw the potential of both solving my own need, as well as providing him with an answer.

Let's say you have a volume with a bunch of folders, but one folder in particular contains files and sub-folders that are constantly accessed and updated by your users.

Where it could be nice to have Shadow Copies enabled for this folder, you don't really have a need for that feature for the rest of the folders/files on that volume.

In this example, I will call the folder where Shadow Copies is needed for Data, the max size needed for the Data folder is 100 GB, and the current drive mapping for the volume where Data is located is E:

  1. Copy all files and sub-folders in the Data folder to safe location.
  2. Delete all files and sub-folders in the Data folder
  3. Start Computer Management (Server Manager -> Tools -> Computer Management)
  4. Click Disk Management under the Storage section.
  5. Right-click the volume currently assigned to drive E:
  6. Select Shrink Volume and shrink it 100 GB (make sure you have enough room left on the volume for your other needs)
  7. After the volume has been shrunk, right-click the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume
  8. Click Next and select the 100 GB you just freed up from drive E:
  9. Select "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder" and browse to E:\Data
  10. Finish the creation of the new volume.
  11. In order to revert to previous versions of files, you will need to assign this volume a drive letter now.
  12. Right-click the new volume and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".
  13. It may already have assigned a new drive letter to this volume, but for some reason it's not visible in your File Explorer.
  14. If you see a new drive letter, select it and click Change; otherwise click Add.
  15. Assign the drive letter you wish to use for this volume. I will pick S for this example.
  16. Close the Computer Management.
  17. Click the File Explorer icon on your taskbar.
  18. Right-click the Data folder on your E: drive and select Properties.
  19. You won't see the Shadow Copies tab on here, but if you notice it says Mounted Volume and there's a Properties button next to it.
  20. Click the Properties button.
  21. Now you should see the Shadow Copies tab. Click it and make sure drive S: is selected and click Enable.

Shadow Copies are now enabled only for the Data folder. Make sure you copy all your files and sub-folders back from the safe location you placed them in.

Please note however, that when you need to revert to an older file, you'll have to do it from the volume directly. In other words, if you have followed my example above, you will have to go to the S: drive, right-click the file you wish to revert, and select "Restore Previous Versions". If you try to do the same thing, accessing the file from the E:\Data folder, that option is not there.

As you can see, this is not a perfect solution, and it may not even be something you need. On the other hand, there may just be someone out there who can use this.