My company manages a lot of web sites, and we are currently working without a VCS. I want to propose a VCS for a few reasons, but I think our requirements may be too unique. We work off of a shared drive that is mapped to windows explorer that has a mirror for each site. When edits are made they get pushed to staging, then when approved to the live site.
I'm not too familiar with VCS, but i have looked into Git and SVN, and I don't think we would be able to use them (correct me if I'm wrong). The problem is, we have so many sites, and we are constantly working on different sites, that keeping a local version of every site to push to the shared drive would be too much.
What i picture, ideally, is something that is stored on the shared drive that the developer can "branch" and work on a temporary file that merged back to the file that the developer opened. Also, it is important that another developer that has never worked on one of the sites before be able to start editing without too much setup. Having a system that tracks changes without changing our workflow too much (or no one will use it or even consider implementing it) and gets rid of the tons of "*_backupTodaysdate.html" files is the goal.
Best Answer
I would quit using a shared drive for shared editing. Go with a proper version control system and personal work spaces. Shared work spaces lead to all sort of issues including lost changes.
There is no reason to have all the sites checked out all the time. Checkout the sites you need and remove the related work space when you are done with the site. Your work flows will need to change accordingly.
I'll avoid repeating a lengthy answer. This question is similar to: What version control system can manage all aspects?