Learn about recovering ONTAP SMB files and folders using previous versions
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The ability to use Microsoft Previous Versions is applicable to file systems that support snapshots in some form and have them enabled. Snapshot technology is an integral part of ONTAP. Users can recover files and folders from snapshots from their Windows client by using the Microsoft Previous Versions feature.
Previous Versions functionality provides a method for users to browse through the snapshots or to restore data from a snapshot without a storage administrator's intervention. Previous Versions is not configurable. It is always enabled. If the storage administrator has made snapshots available on a share, then the user can use Previous Versions to perform the following tasks:
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Recover files that were accidentally deleted.
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Recover from accidentally overwriting a file.
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Compare versions of file while working.
The data stored in snapshots is read-only. Users must save a copy of a file to another location to make any changes to the file. Snapshots are periodically deleted; therefore, users need to create copies of files contained in Previous Versions if they want to indefinitely retain a previous version of a file.