Preserve the state of your data with snapshots

This page describes how to preserve the state of your Filestore data using snapshots. To learn more about snapshots, see Snapshots.

Supported tiers

The following table shows the Filestore tiers that support snapshots:

Tier	Snapshots support
Basic HDD	No
Basic SSD	No
High Scale SSD	No
Enterprise	Yes

Create a snapshot

You can create a snapshot of an instance using one of the following methods:

Google Cloud console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Filestore instances page.

   Go to the Filestore instances page

2. Click the instance that you want to create a snapshot of.

3. Click the Snapshots tab and then click Create snapshot.

4. For Snapshot ID, enter a name for the snapshot. The file share name and snapshot ID can have a combined length of up to 77 characters.

5. Optional: Add a description or labels to the snapshot.

6. Click Create.

gcloud CLI

To create a snapshot of an instance, run the instances snapshots create command:

gcloud filestore instances snapshots create SNAPSHOT_ID \
    --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
    --instance-region=REGION \
    [--description=DESCRIPTION] \
    [--labels=KEY=LABEL]

Replace the following:

• SNAPSHOT_ID with the name that you want to give the snapshot. The file share name and snapshot ID can have a combined length of up to 77 characters.
• INSTANCE_ID with the name of the instance that you want to create a snapshot for.
• REGION with the region of the instance.

Example

The following command creates a snapshot of file share vol1 on the instance nfs-server, which is located in us-central1. The snapshot is named nfs-server-snapshot.

gcloud filestore instances snapshots create nfs-server-snapshot \
    --instance=nfs-server \
    --instance-region=us-central1 \

List, view, update, and delete snapshots

You can list, view, update, and delete snapshots.

Google Cloud console

To manage your snapshots in the Google Cloud console:

1. Go to the Filestore instances page.

   Go to the Filestore instances page

2. Click on the instance ID of the instance that you want to view snapshots of.

3. Click the Snapshots tab.

From the Snapshots tab:

• To see details about a snapshot, click its snapshot ID.
• To edit a snapshot, click Edit in the snapshots details page.
• To delete a snapshot:

1. Click the snapshot ID of the snapshot that you want to delete.
2. Click Delete.
3. When prompted, type the snapshot ID.
4. Click Delete.

gcloud CLI

List all snapshots in your current project

To view a list of snapshots for an instance, run the instances snapshots list command:

gcloud filestore instances snapshots list \
    --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
    --instance-region=REGION

Replace the following:

• INSTANCE_ID with the name of the instance that you want to list snapshots of.
• REGION with the region of the instance.

View information about a snapshot

To view information about a snapshot, run the instances snapshots describe command:

gcloud filestore instances snapshots describe SNAPSHOT_ID \
    --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
    --instance-region=REGION

Replace the following:

• SNAPSHOT_ID with the name that you want to give the snapshot.
• INSTANCE_ID with the name of the instance which the snapshot belongs to.
• REGION with the region of the instance which the snapshot belongs to.

Update a snapshot

To update a snapshot, run the instances snapshots update command:

gcloud filestore instances snapshots update SNAPSHOT_ID \
    --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
    --instance-region=REGION \
    [--description="NEW-DESCRIPTION"] \
    [--update-labels=KEY=VALUE,...]

Replace the following:

• SNAPSHOT_ID with the name that you want to give the snapshot.
• INSTANCE_ID with the name of the instance which the snapshot belongs to.
• REGION with the region of the instance which the snapshot belongs to.
• NEW-DESCRIPTION with a new description of the snapshot.
• KEY=VALUE,... with a list of KEY=VALUE pairs that you want to update. If a label exists, its value is updated, otherwise a new label is created.

Delete a snapshot

Snapshot deletion is a long running operation that can take multiple hours to complete, depending the number of files involved.

To delete a snapshot, run the instances snapshots delete command:

gcloud filestore instances snapshots delete SNAPSHOT_ID \
    --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
    --instance-region=REGION \

Replace the following:

• SNAPSHOT_ID with the name that you want to give the snapshot.
• INSTANCE_ID with the name of the instance which the snapshot belongs to.
• REGION with the region of the instance which the snapshot belongs to.

Restore data

You can restore individual files from a snapshot or revert the entire file share to a snapshot state.

Restore individual files

To restore a file to a previous state that's captured in a snapshot, run the following command from a client VM that has the instance mounted:

sudo cp -pa DIR/.snapshot/SNAPSHOT_ID/FILE DIR

Example

If you want to restore file foo/bar.txt to the state preserved in snapshot snap2, run:

sudo cp -pa foo/.snapshot/snap2/bar.txt foo/

Revert file share to a snapshot state

Preview

This product or feature is covered by the Pre-GA Offerings Terms of the Google Cloud Terms of Service. Pre-GA products and features might have limited support, and changes to pre-GA products and features might not be compatible with other pre-GA versions. For more information, see the launch stage descriptions.

Caution: All data written after the creation of the target snapshot is deleted at the beginning of the revert process and cannot be recovered. All snapshots that are newer than the target snapshot are also deleted. For example, snapshot1, snapshot2, and snapshot3 are created sequentially. Reverting the instance to the state captured in snapshot2 means that snapshot3 and all changes after snapshot3 are deleted in the revert process.

A revert operation may take several hours to complete, depending on the number of files involved. You must wait for the revert operation to complete before starting another revert operation.

To revert a file share to the state captured in a snapshot:

1. Unmount the file share from clients:

   sudo umount mount-point-directory
   

2. Revert the file share to a snapshot state using the instances revert command:

   gcloud beta filestore instances revert INSTANCE_ID \
       --target-snapshot=SNAPSHOT_ID \
       --location=LOCATION
   

   Replace the following:

   • INSTANCE_ID with the ID of the instance that you want to revert.
   • SNAPSHOT_ID with the ID of the snapshot you want to revert to.
   • LOCATION with the location of the instance.

You must wait for the revert operation to complete before you can start another revert operation for the instance. The instance can be mounted on clients once it has changed from the REVERTING state to the READY state, which can take a few minutes. However, the space reclamation process can take up to several hours to complete. During this process, the reclaimed space becomes available gradually until the long running operation finishes and all reclaimed space is available.

What's next

• Learn more about snapshots.
• Learn about backups.