FlashSnap integrates with the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to allow snapshots to be taken of all the volumes that are associated with an Exchange mailbox database without taking the database offline. The VSS COW Snapshot wizard uses VSS to take snapshots of mailbox databases. The VSS process allows the storage group's databases to be quiesced before the snapshot operation and reactivates them immediately after.

SFW also provides a VSS COW Snapshot Scheduler wizard that can be used as an alternative to the VSS COW Snapshot wizard. It enables you to set up a schedule for taking the snapshots at the specified times. The schedule is maintained by a scheduler service, VxSchedService.exe, that runs in the background.