What a Snapshot copy is

A Snapshot copy is a frozen, read-only image of a traditional volume, a flexible volume, or an aggregate that captures the state of the file system at a point in time. Snapshot copies are your first line of defense to backup and restore data.

When Snapshot copies are created, Data ONTAP maintains a configurable Snapshot copy schedule that creates and deletes Snapshot copies automatically for each volume. You can also create and delete Snapshot copies manually.

You can store up to 255 Snapshot copies at one time on each volume.

You can specify the percentage of disk space that Snapshot copies can occupy. The default space reserved for Snapshot copies is zero percent for SAN and VMware volumes. For NAS volumes, it is five percent on storage systems running Data ONTAP 8.1.