Understanding SnapRestore

What SnapRestore does

SnapRestore enables you to revert a local volume or file on a filer quickly to the state it was in when a particular snapshot was taken. In most cases, reverting a file or volume is much faster than restoring files from tape or copying files from a snapshot to the active file system.

How SnapRestore works

After you select a snapshot for reversion, the filer reverts the specified file or the volume to the data and timestamps that it contained when the selected snapshot was taken. Data that was written after the selected snapshot was taken is lost. If the volume you select for reversion is a root volume, the filer reboots the system.

What SnapRestore reverts

SnapRestore reverts only the file contents. It does not revert attributes of a volume. For example, the snapshot schedule, volume option settings, RAID group size, and maximum number of files per volume remain unchanged after the reversion.

When to use SnapRestore

You use SnapRestore to recover from data corruption. If a primary storage system application corrupts data files in a volume, you can revert the volume or specified files in the volume to a snapshot taken before the data corruption.

Why use SnapRestore rather than copying from a snapshot

SnapRestore carries out snapshot restoration more quickly, using less disk space, than an administrator can achieve by manually copying volumes, qtrees, directories, or large files to be restored from the filer's snapshot system to the active file system. A large volume directory restore can be carried out in a few seconds using the SnapRestore feature.

SnapRestore can restore large volumes or files even if space limitations would prevent restoring by copying from a snapshot.