File History duplicates in Windows 8.1 and 10

Topic

New Reply

First I’ve heard about it, but reader CH says it’s true: Wonder if you’ve noticed that File History in W10 has been bust for a long time (at least sin
[See the full post at: File History duplicates in Windows 8.1 and 10]

Reply | Quote

Replies

This got me thinking about the amount of space consumed by Shadow Copy (Win10). Does anyone out there know if Shadow Copies are limited by the amount of space you configure for System Restore? Or do they have their own space limit?

Reply | Quote

My 2009 Win 7 Home Premium x 64 does this same thing, and has been for about 2 years. I haven’t tried to figure it out because I just zap the dup files.

Reply | Quote

“Anybody out there have any sage advice?”

Use Macrium Reflect or another third-party backup program. They’re easier to use and more flexible than all the file backup schemes Microsoft has come up with over the years.

Then there’s the security angle. File History requires keeping a backup drive constantly hooked up to your PC. If your PC gets hit by ransomware, you lose not only the files on your PC, but your backup as well. It’s safer to make frequent backups with Macrium and keep the backup drive disconnected at all other times. You can still also use File History if you want, but I wouldn’t count on it to save me in a pinch.

Just my 2 cents.

Reply | Quote

As far as I know, when the disk will fill up, the oldest versions of the files will be deleted to make space for newer ones. From this point of view, the recommendation is to have the largest possible backup disk to keep as much information as possible.
System Restore is deprecated, officially or not and has never been a reliable component. My suggestion is to disable System Restore and replace with other solutions available from Microsoft or third-party.

Reply | Quote

File History does NOT require keeping a backup drive constantly hooked up to your PC:

Reconnect your File History drive
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/instantanswers/b9f8b902-b891-2f9c-ca31-8f3eda7c5b2b/reconnect-your-file-history-drive

Reply | Quote

Note that File History does not use Shadow Copies either. Only Windows 7 and Vista’s Previous Versions feature used Shadow Copies. File History uses the NTFS USN Journal to track changes.

Reply | Quote