When you start using CDP Standard Edition the first thing you will do is create a new Disk Safe to store your backup replicas.  The Disk Safe is an on-disk repository that has point-in-time replicas of each device or disk volume on your server you have chosen to protect. 

After you create a Disk Safe you then select what devices or disk volumes on your server you would like to protect.  Or you can simply select to protect all devices.  Next you can browse all of the current files and folders on your disks and point and click select files and folders to exclude from CDP data protection.

Want to exclude the Windows installation or program files folders? 

Easy, just check the box next to C:\Windows and C:\Program Files in the File and Folder Excludes tab of your Data Protection Policy and they will automatically be excluded.

You can view a summary of excludes defined for each Data protection Policy.

Note: excluding files will add time to your CDP backup window.  The more files in the folder you are excluding the longer the exclude process takes.  CDP 3 will give you a busy indicator showing you how much time has elapsed excluding files/folders.  

Use simple wild card type patterns to exclude certain paths or file types form your CDP replicas. 

• Exclude all log files  C:\*.log
       
  
• Exclude all MP3 files in a specific folder C:\Web Root\public\*.mp3
     
• Exclude all files and folders named temp – C:\*\temp

Note: To experience the shortest CDP backup windows when using a fast network do not exclude any files.  Excluding files can add significant time to your CDP backup window, potentially hours.  The more files in the folder you are excluding the longer the exclude process takes.  Excluding large files does not take any more time typically then excluding small files.  It is the number of files being excluded that determines how long the exclude process takes.  CDP 3 will give you a busy indicator showing you how much time has elapsed excluding files/folders. 

If you exclude files by pattern (e.g. "C:\*.log") this process can obviously take a long time, potentially hours depending on how many files there are as each file name on the disk must be examined against the pattern.

CDP will automatically exclude your Windows page files, hibernate files, volume shadow copy and system state files, and other temporary files.

These are called "Default Excludes" in the CDP Web Interface and are recorded in the CDP Policy reports.

After performing the volume shadow copy snapshot the CDP software reads the standard MS Windows registry key: SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\BackupRestore\\FilesNotToBackup

All files and folders in this registry key are automatically excluded.

If you happen to store the Disk Safe on the same Hard Disk you are protecting with CDP it will be detected and the Disk Safe will safely be excluded.  This means you can store CDP backups of your C:\ on the C:\.  This is useful if you are not concerned about disaster recovery and instead need to quickly restore older versions of files or protected against accidental data loss.

Note: Replicating a disk to itself has obvious performance drawbacks.  Do not expect great transfer rates when you do this.