Knowing Snapshot Best Practice to Manage It Properly

Snapshots can achieve a short period of data storage, but if there is no reasonable management of snapshots may cause some impact on the data, so good management tools are necessary, you need to know some snapshot best practice.

Amelia

By Amelia / Updated on January 14, 2025

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Snapshots can provide a quick and efficient way to capture the state of a system or virtual machine at a specific point in time. There is a difference between snapshots and backups; snapshots are not long-term data stores and commands make short-term solutions. When snapshots are not managed properly, they can lead to performance degradation, storage issues, and operational inefficiencies. This article outlines some best practices for managing snapshots to maximize the benefits of snapshots.

How to Operate Snapshots in VMware

Performing a snapshot involves capturing the current state of a system, virtual machine (VM), or storage volume at a specific point in time. Here are the steps on how to perform a snapshot in VMware.

Step 1. Log in to the vSphere Client, and select the virtual machine you want to snapshot.

Step 2. Right-click the virtual machine and choose Snapshot > Take Snapshot.

take snapshot

Step 3. Provide a name and description for the snapshot.

The Snapshot Best Practice in VMware

To properly manage snapshots without issues, the following provides you with best practices for using VMware snapshots effectively.

Use snapshots for short-term purposes only

Snapshots should only be used for short-term purposes, such as testing or system updates.

Avoid keeping snapshots for more than 72 hours to prevent performance issues.

If you need long-term data protection, you can use VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP) or another dedicated backup solution.

Limit the number of snapshots per virtual machine

Limit the number of snapshots to a maximum of 2-3 per virtual machine.

Too many snapshots can create long chains of delta files, resulting in:

  • Increased storage consumption.
  • Multiple read/write dependencies lead to performance degradation.

Monitoring snapshot size and growth

Over time, snapshots grow as changes accumulate, large snapshots can:

  • Consume a large amount of storage space.
  • Affects virtual machine performance.

Consolidate Snapshots Regularly

Consolidating will rejoin the delta files to the base disk, so it should be done:

  • After completing a test or upgrade.
  • If snapshots are no longer needed.

To perform consolidation:

  • In the vSphere Client, right-click the virtual machine.
  • Select Snapshot > Consolidate.

consolidate snapshot

A Powerful VMware Backup Tool to Protect Data

Snapshots can only provide short-term data storage, for data security you can choose to use long-term data storage or disaster recovery, backup as a solution. You can choose AOMEI Cyber Backup is a professional backup software that provides flexible backup policies to seamlessly protect virtual machine data. It enables instant recovery when you face a disaster, minimizing downtime as much as possible.


User-friendly Interface: With an intuitive interface, it simplifies the backup process for users of all experience levels.

Restore from Any Point: With scheduled backups, you can easily restore a virtual machine to any backed-up version.

Centralized Management: A centralized web console to manage your VMware virtual machines regardless of sockets and hosts.

Role Assignment: It allows one administrator to create subaccounts with limited privileges, effectively reducing human errors.

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Simple steps to backup and restore VMware ESXi VMs

Step 1. Log in to AOMEI Cyber Backup, navigate to Source Device > VMware > +Add VMware Device to Add vCenter or Standalone ESXi. Then enter Device Information and User Information and click Confirm.

Bind device

Step 2. Navigate to Backup Task > + Create New Task, and select VMware ESXi Backup as the Backup Type. Then set the Task Name, Device, Target, and Schedule as needed.

VMware ESXi backup

  • Task Name: You can change the task name or use the default name with an ordinal.
  • Device: Batch backup multiple VMs on vCenter or standalone host within one backup task.
  • Target: Select to back up to a local path, or a network path like NAS.
  • Archive: Select cloud storage like S3 buckets, easily archiving VMware backup to Amazon S3.

archive vmware backup

  • Schedule: It can perform full, differential, or incremental backup, and automate execution according to the frequency you specified.

schedule backup

Step 3. Click Start Backup and select Add the schedule and start backup now, or Add the schedule only.

Start Backup

Step 4. Go back to Backup Task and click > Restore on the left backup task to start setting up the virtual machine recovery task.

restore-disk

FAQs about Snapshots

Q: How long should you keep a VM snapshot?

A: You should keep a VM snapshot for a short duration, typically no longer than 72 hours to 1 week, depending on the use case.

Q: Do snapshots slow down VM performance?

A: Yes, VM snapshots can significantly slow down VM performance if they kept for too long or managed improperly.

Q: Why snapshot is faster than a backup?

A: A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of data capturing its current state, often allowing for quick recovery or system rollback.

Q: Should you power off the VM before the snapshot?

A: To create a snapshot, VMs with independent disks must be powered off first.

Q: How many snapshots can a VM have?

A: The number of snapshots a VM can have depends on the hypervisor you use, as each platform has different limits.

Conclusion

When used appropriately, snapshots are a powerful tool, but they also need to be managed well to avoid the pitfalls of mismanagement. By adhering to snaps hotting best practices, snapshots can be used effectively to improve operational efficiency.

Amelia
Amelia · Editor
Amelia is an editor from AOMEI. Trained in professional systems, she specializes in solving problems in enterprise databases, virtual machines, and physical environments. With a high sense of responsibility, she is dedicated to protecting business data and security.