Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)

Window Server 2008 R2 Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provides some great features that can be used to enhance backup and recovery for Windows disks. One great feature of VSS, called Shadow Copies for Shared Volumes, captures and stores copies of the files and folders at a specific point in time.

Administrators and end users with the correct permissions can browse the shadow copies based on the time and date of creation and essentially restore a specific folder, file, or entire volume without restoring from tape. The shadow copies are very space efficient, as the first copy is a complete compressed version of the data on the volume, and subsequent copies store only the changes made since the last shadow copy was created.