A brief overview of all important SharePoint 2016 directories and their functionality. All of these directories must be backed up so that SharePoint can be completely restored at file level in the event of a disaster. Don’t forget to backup the directories containing data from 3rd party applications.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0
Default directory for binaries and data from SharePoint 2016.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\Data
Root directory for local data and search indexes.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\Logs
Default directory for Run-Time Diagnostic Logfiles.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\16.0\WebServices
Root directory for SharePoint back-end Web services such as search or Excel services.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16
Installation directory for the Core SharePoint files.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ADMISAPI
This directory contains the soap services for the central administration.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\BIN
This directory contains the core binary files and utilities.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\Client
This directory contains files used for creating Office apps.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\CONFIG
This directory contains files that extend the IIS websites with SharePoint.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\GAC
This folder contains Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.Portable.Resources.dll and Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.Resources.dll.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\HHCab
This directory contains a set of cab files which include information deployed by the SharePoint help system.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\Help
This folder contains the html help file.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI
This directory contains the standard Web Services for SharePoint resources and configuration files used by the web services.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\LOGS
Default directory for runtime and setup log files.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\Policy
This directory contains the policy settings.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\Resources
This directory contains the core.resx file used for creating language packs for SharePoint.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE
This directory contains the core web site functionality such as configurations, features, resources and templates.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\UserCode
This directory contains files used to support Sandboxed Solutions.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\WebClients
This directory contains files for the Client Object Model.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\WebServices
This directory hosts the SharePoint web services.

C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss
Default directory for IIS websites. A directory is also created under the wwwroot for each SharePoint Web Application.