Snapshot
A photograph of the whole disk, taken before you touch anything.
A snapshot is the entire server — operating system, configuration, application and data — captured as it was at one moment. Take one before a risky change, and going back is a restore rather than an evening.
- Whole disk
- OS, config, data, all of it
- On demand
- taken when you ask, in minutes
- Restorable
- put the server back as it was
- Cloneable
- build a new server from one
What it is
The moment worth protecting is the one just before an upgrade: a new PHP version, a database migration, a configuration change somebody is not certain about. A snapshot taken then is a complete copy of the machine as it was working.
If the change goes badly, you restore and you are back where you started — with the same files, the same packages, the same everything. And because the image is a whole server, it can also be used the other way round: build a second machine from it, identically configured, without setting anything up twice.
What it does for you
Six things Snapshot changes about how your infrastructure behaves.
Take one before the risky thing
Upgrades, migrations, a change somebody is not sure about. Thirty seconds of preparation against an evening of recovery.
Go back in minutes
Restoring returns the whole machine to the captured state. Not a file, not a database — the server.
Build a new server from it
Use an image as the template for the next machine and get an identically configured server without repeating the setup.
Consistent across the disk
The image is the whole filesystem at one moment, so the application and the database it depends on match each other.
No downtime to take one
The server keeps running while the image is made.
Keep as many as the work needs
One before each deployment, kept until the deployment has proved itself, then cleared.
- A snapshot is not a backup
- They protect against different things and the difference matters. A snapshot is a manual copy of one machine at one moment, usually kept for as long as the change it protects. A backup runs on a schedule, keeps history, and lives away from the server. Snapshots save you from an upgrade; backups save you from a month-old mistake nobody noticed, or from the machine itself going away.
- Use both, for what each is for
- Take a snapshot before every change you would not want to make twice. Keep scheduled backups running underneath the whole time. Either one alone leaves a gap you will eventually find.
What it costs
Snapshots are priced by the size of the image and how long you keep it. Taking one before a change and clearing it afterwards costs very little; tell us your pattern and we will quote it.
We would rather quote you than publish a number we have not checked. Everything on the pricing page is a figure the order form actually charges — this will join it the day the same is true here.
Questions
How long does taking one take?
Minutes, depending on how much is on the disk. The server stays up throughout.
Does restoring lose anything?
It loses everything that happened after the snapshot was taken — that is what restoring means. If the server has been live since, take a fresh copy of anything you need before you restore over it.
Can I restore to a different server?
Yes. An image can be used to build a new machine, which is how you clone a server or move one to a different size.
How many should I keep?
Fewer than you think. A snapshot is a full copy of the disk, so keeping twenty of them costs twenty disks. Keep the one before the current change, and let scheduled backups hold the history.
Something not answered here? Ask us — it is a short answer or it is a phone call, and either is fine.
The rest of the cloud range
These are built to be used together — a server inside a private network, behind a firewall, with its data on a volume and its history in backups.
Cloud Server (VM)
Scalable Linux and Windows instances
See sizes and pricesBare Metal
A whole physical machine, for demanding workloads
Learn moreLoad Balancers
One address in front of many servers
Learn moreVPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
A private network only your servers can see
Learn moreCloud Firewall
Control incoming and outgoing network traffic
Learn moreBlock Storage
High-performance storage you mount to a server
Learn moreObject Storage
Scalable, S3-compatible storage
Learn moreBackup
Automated data protection and recovery
Learn moreNot sure whether you need this?
Tell us what you are running and what is going wrong with it. We will say which of these actually helps — including when the answer is none of them.