File History

Hi.
Hope I have posted this in the correct forum - I could not find a 'Backup & Restore' page.

I have just purchased a NAS drive and I am going to enable Windows 10 to backup to this using File History.

My question is, how does windows store these files?

For example, could I look at these files and access them from my NAS drive or are they backed up in the same way as a system image (and only accessible from the File History application)?

Many thanks
Chris

You can look at them direct if you want to. The current versions are stored in

<Drivename>:\FileHistory\<User name>\<Computer Name>\<Backed up Drive>\Users\<User>\Whatever

so for example my OneDrive documents (which I store on D drive are stored in)

G:\FileHistory\Hali\HALI-WIN10\Data\D\Users\Hali\OneDrive\Documents

Old versions of files are in (I think)

[I]<Drivename>:\FileHistory\<User name>\<Computer Name>\Data\$OF\<Some random rumber>\<some random file.dat[\I]

Easier to use the File History GUI though IMO :)

lx07 said:

You can look at them direct if you want to. They are stored in

<Drivename>:\FileHistory\<User name>\<Computer Name>\<Backed up Drive>\Users\<User>\Whatever

so for example my OneDrive documents (which I store on D drive is)

G:\FileHistory\Hali\HALI-WIN10\Data\D\Users\Hali\OneDrive\Documents

Easier to use the File History GUI though IMO

That's great thanks. Saves me using a 3rd party software.

Yes I would use the File History GUI if I ever needed to restore.
It's just if I am away from the home and I'd like to access one of my PC files, I should be able to browse the folders in my NAS using File Explorer.

djwoody said:

That's great thanks. Saves me using a 3rd party software.

Yes I would use the File History GUI if I ever needed to restore.
It's just if I am away from the home and I'd like to access one of my PC files, I should be able to browse the folders in my NAS using File Explorer.

That should work yes but historical versions of a file will not be accessible (at least I don't know how).

lx07 said:

That should work yes but historical versions of a file will not be accessible (at least I don't know how).

So in theory, the file it shows would just be the most recent version?

As far as i am aware, i could be wrong (can't test right now) you can see all versions of the file there is.

The history location date stamps the file every times it changes so you get the same file name x numbers of times (depending on how often it changes with the date) obviously each file will have different contents depending on the changes to the file.

All these files can just be viewed as normal

JDobbsy1987 said:

As far as i am aware, i could be wrong (can't test right now) you can see all versions of the file there is.

The history location date stamps the file every times it changes so you get the same file name x numbers of times (depending on how often it changes with the date) obviously each file will have different contents depending on the changes to the file.

All these files can just be viewed as normal

I just checked and it seems you are right - old versions are there as well. I must have just picked an unchanged file when I looked before.

Thanks for all your replies. Looks like this is the ideal solution for me then.
With the process running in the background constantly, does it have an effect on system resources and performance?

I have never seen performance issues at all, I have mine run every hour.