CopyRight2: Volume Shadow Copy Support

CopyRight2 Build 134 introduces support for the Windows® Volume Shadow Copy Service, which creates snapshots of local drives in an efficient and space-saving way. This service is the same operating system component that Windows® Backup and third party backup tools use to implement backing up files being locked because they are in use.

 

The new feature is available in the CopyRight2 GUI within a copy job's options, located within the source and destination tab.

 

By enabling this feature CopyRight2 will initiate the creation of a volume shadow copy snapshot of the local source drive, which usually takes only a few seconds and then uses the volume shadow copy as the source for the copy operation.

 

The shadow copy of the drive contains all the files of the source in exactly the sate they were in at the time the snapshot took place. CopyRight2 supports multiple source folders and all the source folders will participate in the transaction, even if distributed across multiple disks.

 

However, any changes to the file system and the file security that took place after the snapshot, are not contained. This applies to changes that took place during the copy job or after its completion. That means that at least one more synchronization run is required without volume shadow copies enabled to take care of the changes that took place after the snapshot. This subsequent run will execute much faster, because most of the data has been transferred already previously. Alternatively, CopyRight2's real-time synchronization can be used to achieve continuous replication of the data without the need for a subsequent comparison of the data.

 

For users of the command line interface the new option "/VolumeShadowCopy" has been added that can be used in conjunction with the CopyRight2 copy command.