Snapshots Clarification

[irvcon]

Thanks Todd, -very informative.

Let me make sure I understand. If I use your snapshot schedule:

snapshot002 at 8:00 - 12:00
snapshot003 at 12:00 - 18:00
snapshot004 at 18:00 - 23:59

I can:

a) do file level restores from any snapshot with admin privileges
b) backup snapshot004 at 00:00 and capture all changes made during that business day

Sound about right?

Thanks!

[To-M]

Yes you will be able to do a file restore from any snapshot with admin rights that you have assigned. To grant access to the snapshot images you select a user in the SMB Snapshot Access fields. Backing up the snapshots from the will capture all changes made after completion of end time of schedule.

[irvcon]

Perfectly clear now. Thank you very much.

[irvcon]

Ok, sorry, but more clarification is needed.

I set up 4 snapshots so that 002 - 004 do not overlap, and each cover a 3 hour 59 minute window.

I have two issues:

1) The drop-list to select the snapshot for local backup shows no entries (Maintenance/Backup/Local Backup/Snapshot). Why?

Also, if I try to backup without any snapshot selected why does a message pop up saying:

"No snapshot choosed.
Backup can be made only from snapshots with no create- and remove-time assigned."


2) Only the active snapshot actually contains files, the other 3 are empty and designated as "unused"


My goal is to have multiple restore points available concurrently. Is this possible?

It would appear that placing an end time on a snapshot causes it to write to the mail volume and "empty" itself. While this is fine, it is not what I need for my implementation.

The obvious solution is to not put end-times on snapshots, which would cause them to persist for 24 hours until refreshed at the next start time. Sounds great, but when you have more than one snapshot in this mode, I need to know how they interact with each other with respect to writes to the main volume. All the questions I asked previously about interaction still apply.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[To-M]

1)
You must set a Snapshot with no begin and no end time. Then create the snapshot in Maintenance / Snapshot this will set it in manual mode to allow you to select from the Maintenance / Backup.

Please read the instructions on how this is done or read the cut that I have provided.

Function “Local backup”
This function allows you to backup shares into tar-gziped files. Available choices:

Source lv:
Please choose logical volume from which shares will be backed up. It is possible
to backup shares from one logical volumes at once.
When you change source lv, avaliable shares and snapshot will also
change.

Snapshot:
Backup is performed from snapshot to provide data integrity.
You can choose only from snapshots with no create- and remove-time
assigned.

2)
You can have multiple snapshots to provide multiple restore points. Please set your Snapshots appropriate to the scheduled or with no end time for file recovery purposes. It would be best if you can test which Snapshot functions would best fit your needs for this, as every environment is different.

[irvcon]

I think I understand snapshots well enough now to know that I want to have no end times in order to preserve restorable data. This gives me snapshots that are refreshed at create time every day. Cool.

The only issue I have now is with backups. You've confirmed that backups can only function on snapshots that have no start or end time. That means no automatically scheduled snapshot can be backed up at all, -only manually created ones.

Is this correct? Seems strange to me.

Thanks.

[To-M]

This is the function of Local Backup. Backup is performed from snapshot to provide data integrity. So you need to have this setup for manual mode for backup and the other Snapshots can be used for quick file retrieval. This is explained in the manual as well.

[To-M]

Yes this function is available to restore but this is a manual process for your snapshots. The Dynamic Volume can be over written.