Questions
- I deleted a folder from my personal H: drive; how can I recover it?
- Can I restore a folder that I deleted from my department drive?
- I deleted a folder from my personal space on the HPC cluster; can this be restored?
- How do I restore a deleted file from my personal network space?
- How do I get back an earlier version of a file on Microwave?
Environment
This article applies to staff, faculty, and students who have stored data on either a department drive or personal network space on the Microwave file server. These may also be referred to as the J: drive or H: drive, respectively.
Resolution
Data is backed up periodically on the Microwave storage system into what are called snapshots. Data can be recovered from these snapshots for a short period of time.
What are snapshots?
Information Technology automatically takes incremental, point-in-time backups, called snapshots, for many locations on Microwave, the college's network file storage location, throughout the day. IT also keeps the last five days and then a single week's worth of snapshots, so that you can access backups up to a week old.
The backups work as follows:
- A snapshot is taken at hour 0 (named hourly.0). An hour later, the hourly.0 snapshot is moved to hourly.1 and another snapshot is taken. This progresses through hourly.13.
- Hourly.13 is converted into nightly.0 and the process starts again at hourly.0. On day 2 the nightly.0 is copied to nightly.1 and the new hourly.13 is converted to nightly.0. This progresses through nightly.4, when it becomes weekly.0. When weekly.0 ages out, the previous snapshots are removed and the cycle continues.
Snapshots vary depending on the network location. Your home directory (personal space and HPC storage location) on Microwave, and department directories, back up on the schedule above.
Some storage locations have data that changes much less frequently. These locations may have different schedules, so if you are accessing data outside of the two previously mentioned locations and would like to know the backup schedule, contact the Service Desk.
Access the snapshots on macOS
You can access the snapshots through the macOS Finder by mounting a new network location. The process is the same for each location you would like to browse; the steps below cover the department drive and personal drive locations on Microwave.
Department drive (macOS)
- From the Finder menu, choose Go, then Connect to Server.
- Enter the path to your department drive and add
~snapshot to the end, similar to smb://microwave/dept/department_name/~snapshot, where department_name is the network name of your department. The screenshot below shows accessing the snapshots for the IT department location, which is named ccenter.
- Click Connect.
- If prompted, enter your Bowdoin username and password.
- A new Finder window opens showing a list of available snapshot folders.
- Browse through the folders as you would any other. Once you locate the item you would like to restore, copy it to the current, live network folder, overwriting any existing version if you want to replace it.
Personal drive (macOS)
The instructions for your personal network drive are similar except for the mount location.
- From the Finder menu, choose Go, then Connect to Server.
- Enter the path to your personal network space and add
~snapshot to the end, similar to smb://microwave/home/username/~snapshot, where username is your Bowdoin username.
- Click Connect.
- If prompted, enter your Bowdoin username and password.
- A new Finder window opens showing a list of available snapshot folders.
- Browse through the folders as you would any other. Once you locate the item you would like to restore, copy it to the current, live network folder, overwriting any existing version if you want to replace it.
Access the snapshots on Windows
You can access the snapshots from Windows using a feature built into the operating system itself.
- Browse to the location where you would like to restore a file or folder. This could be your personal network space (H: drive), your department space (J: drive), or many other Microwave locations.
- Once you are at the folder you would like to restore an item for, right-click the folder and choose Properties. Note: you can only browse to restore items at the folder level. If you have an item inside a folder you would like to restore, browse to the parent folder (you might have to go up a level).
- In the Properties window, click the Previous Versions tab. You will see a list of backups and the times they were taken. Double-click any of the folders to open that backup location. Browse through the folders as you would any other. Once you locate the item you would like to restore, copy it to the current, live network folder, overwriting any existing version if you want to replace it.
Additional Help
If you need further assistance, you have several options:
- Bowdoin Bot: Chat with Bowdoin Bot directly from any KB page for instant answers.
- Phone: Call the Bowdoin College Service Desk at (207) 725-3030.
- In person: Visit the Tech Hub in Smith Union during business hours.
- Submit a ticket: Request assistance through the Service Catalog.