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Network drives are backed up on an hourly, daily and weekly basis.

• Hourly backups are created at 5 minutes past the hour and are available for a period of 48 hours in a rolling window from the current time.

• Daily backups are a single instance stored at 12:10AM each day and are held for 14 days (2 weeks) from the current day.

• Weekly backups are stored as of 12:15AM every Sunday and are held for 17 weeks or about 4 months from the current date.

• Backups are not maintained beyond 4 months from the current date due to a lack of space required to keep more than this amount.

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1. Open the Finder app

2. Click Go (on the menu bar at the upper-left of your display) then click Connect to Server… from the drop-down menu list. 
   

   

3. Enter the following network share path into the Connect to Server window: 

   1. smb://fileu.uwaterloo.ca/users$/~snapshot 

   2. Then click the Connect button at the lower-right of the window

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4. If prompted, click Connect again to continue. This message appears the first time you connect to the server. 
   

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5. You will be prompted to enter your name and password for the server. 

   1. Select the Registered User option. 

   2. Name: enter your 8 character UWaterloo username (ie. j25rober) and your password. 

   3. Click

   "

   1. Remember this password in my keychain

   ” as

   1.  as your credentials are used to access another subfolder

   on this drive in step

   1. on this drive in Step 7.  

   2. Click Connect

   . 

6. Drive: [select any available letter] – you can press a letter on your keyboard, e.g. “S”

   1. Folder: \\fileu.uwaterloo.ca\users$\~snapshot

   2. Uncheck the option of Reconnect at sign-in.

   3. Check the option for Connect using different credentials

   4. Click the Finish button near the bottom-right of the window
      

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7. At the Windows Security authentication prompt window:

   1. Enter: uwaterloo.ca\username (replace “username” with your 8 character UWaterloo username (ie. j25rober))

   2. Type in your password, then press [Enter/return] on your keyboard or click the OK button.
      

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8. A new File Explorer window

   1. 
      

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9. A new Finder window should open. Please be patient, it may take 5-10 seconds. 

   1. The backup (snapshot) list is alpha-numerical so “Daily” snapshots are listed at the top, “Hourly” in the middle, and “Weekly” at the bottom. 

   2. DO NOT TRY TO OPEN A FOLDER AT THIS LEVEL. Each snapshot contains  Each snapshot folder contains a listing of ALL usernames with an Na campus N-drive (thousands). It will take anywhere from 30 minutes to more than an hour for the list to be complete and for it to show your username. You can wait to see the entire list, but you will only have permission to view the contents of your ownown username folders. 

   3. Read the explanation below (items i to items i to iv) and then use the manual method in step Step #7 to save yourself from waiting a very long time. 

      1. Take a screen shot of the folder names, or be folder names or be aware of the naming convention for the backup names. Note: the actually actual backup date and time may time of a file may not match the precise date and time based on the folder name, but it will be within a day and all backup folder names use these specific patterns.patterns as the backups begin at the listed time. E.g. a backup that began before midnight can contain files with a date and time for the following day. 

      2. Daily = “daily“daily.yyyy-mm-dd_0010”0010” 

         1. Text “daily” a dot, 4-digit year, hyphen, 2-digit month, hyphen, 2-digit day, underscore 0010 (all daily backups are as of 12:10AM EST.) 

         So a

         1. So a daily backup for 2020-Dec-25 will = 2020-12-25_0010 

      3. Hourly = “hourly“hourly.yyyy-mm-dd_tttt””  

         1. Times for “tttt” will be 24-hour time of the latest 48 hours at 5 past the hour from “0005” for 12:05AM through to “2305” for 11:05PM. 

         2. Hourly backup for 2020-Dec-25 at 1:05PM = 2020-12-25_1305 

      4. Weekly = “weekly“weekly.yyyy-mm-dd_0015”0015” 

         1. Weekly backups from Jan. 2020

         are…

         1. are… 2020-01-05_0015, weekly.2020-01-12_0015, weekly.2020-01-19_0015, weekly.2020-01-26_0015, weekly.2020-02-02_0015, and so on… – and are only available while they are among the latest 17 weeks of backups, with the date being

         a

         1. a Sunday

         in

         1.  in the calendar year at 12:15AM or 15 minutes past midnight of Saturday evening into Sunday morning EST. 
            

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10. Click Go (on the path bar near the top of the File Explorer window and manually type in a specific snapshot folder along with your username.

11. Click on the path bar that shows the snapshot
    

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Manually type in the date, a backslash, and your username, e.g.: “2020-03-14_0010\username”


12. Replace “username” with your own WatIAM userid.

Then press

menu bar at the upper-left of your display) then click Connect to Server… from the drop-down menu list.

1. Manually edit the path by typing in a forward slash then the folder name.YYYY-MM-DD_hhmm of a current backup listed in step #6, a forward slash, and then your own WatIAM username. 
   E.g.: smb://fileu.uwaterloo.ca/users$/~snapshot/hourly.2021-06-11_0010/username 

2. Then click the Connect button at lower-right or press [Enter/return] on your keyboard. 
   

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You can now browse
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2. A Finder window will open allowing you to browse your folders and files from that backup date to

locate the deleted file.

1. locate a deleted or previous version of a file. 

2. If you can’t locate the file

then edit the path bar

1. then click the back arrow on the toolbar at the top of the Finder window to return to the snapshot list, then repeat the steps to edit the server path to view an older backup, either an earlier hour, previous day, or previous week.

13. Copy the file into Find your file and copy it into a location on your computer once you locate it. . Rename the new copy of the file if you have another version with the same name. 

14. Open the file to ensure it contains the information you are looking for. You may need to locate another backup copy if to find, open, and review the contents of another backup copy if the file is blank, corrupt or  corrupt, or missing large portions of the data you are looking for.When you are done, right-click on the snapshot share, and then click Disconnect from  

15. Disconnect from the snapshot folder. Return to the Finder app and eject the server… 

    1. Click on the eject icon at the right of the server path fileu.uwaterloo.ca in the navigation shortcut list under Locations

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       OR

    2. Right-click the share and select Eject from the pop-up menu

    list.

    1. 
       

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16. Click the Disconnect button for the Cisco AnyConnect VPN application if it is no longer needed. 
    

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