Sunday, October 24, 2010

Why Don't Operating Systems Save a Buffer of Deleted Files?

After accidentally overwriting a file with an older version that was inside a newer version of a folder that I was backing up I wondered why don't operating systems simply create a buffer of recently deleted files that could be quickly accessed? I use "Data Rescue" software but it takes a couple of hours to search my disk for deleted files and to reconstruct them. If my computer had a record or copy of the most recently deleted files this process would be a lot quicker. Now that hard drives are so large I can't see why not.

5 comments:

Rafi (S) said...

Windows has had this for years. It's called the recycling bin. It's hard to believe Mac doesn't have this as well...

Clifford said...

Windows and Mac operate the same way: the file sits in the trash can until it's emptied. Then the file is gone.

If you're serious about this, you need to get time capsule which also doubles as a router. http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/

mOOm said...

My problem is when you copy a file from one disk to another and overwrite the existing one on that disk. Sometimes, it warns you that the one you are copying on top of is newer but if you copy a whole folder there could be a newer version of one file in the version of the folder on the target disk and you don't get a warning. You only get a warning if the structure of the folder has been changed more recently. So either there needs to be a warning that some files in the folder that is about to be over-written are newer or the contents of that folder could be saved into a buffer temporarily.

Rafi (S) said...

Windows 7 has something called versions. The system automatically saves snapshots of file system and allows you to rollback individual files to those snapshots. Otherwise just do regular backup.

mOOm said...

The system automatically saves snapshots of file system and allows you to rollback individual files to those snapshots

That's what I need. It's doing a backup that ended up erasing my file. Auto backup like Time Capsule would solve the problem I am having. But really, I just need to double check every time I save a file, which disk I am saving it too. I ran Data Rescue and it couldn't recover the file this time.