Skip to main content

Protect FlexGroup volumes using Snapshot copies

Contributors netapp-thomi netapp-lenida netapp-aherbin
PDFs

You can create Snapshot policies that automatically manage the creation of Snapshot copies or you can manually create Snapshot copies for FlexGroup volumes. A valid Snapshot copy is created for a FlexGroup volume only after ONTAP can successfully create a Snapshot copy for each constituent of the FlexGroup volume.

About this task

  • If you have multiple FlexGroup volumes associated with a Snapshot policy, you should ensure that the FlexGroup volumes schedules do not overlap.

  • Beginning with ONTAP 9.8, the maximum number of Snapshot copies supported on a FlexGroup volume is 1023.

Note Beginning with ONTAP 9.8, the volume snapshot show command for FlexGroup volumes reports Snapshot copy size using logical blocks, rather than calculating the youngest owned blocks. This new size calculation method might make the Snapshot copy size appear larger than calculations in earlier versions of ONTAP.
Steps

  1. Create a Snapshot policy or manually create a Snapshot copy:

    If you want to create a…​

    Enter this command…​

    Snapshot policy

    volume snapshot policy create

    Note The schedules that are associated with the Snapshot policy of a FlexGroup volume must have an interval greater than 30 minutes.

    When you create a FlexGroup volume, the default Snapshot policy is applied to the FlexGroup volume.

    Snapshot copy manually

    volume snapshot create

    Note After you create a Snapshot copy for a FlexGroup volume, you cannot modify the attributes of the Snapshot copy. If you want to modify the attributes, you must delete and then re-create the Snapshot copy.

Client access to the FlexGroup volume is briefly quiesced when a Snapshot copy is created.

  1. Verify that a valid Snapshot copy is created for the FlexGroup volume: volume snapshot show -volume volume_name -fields state

    cluster1::> volume snapshot show -volume fg -fields state
vserver volume snapshot               state
------- ------ ---------------------- -----
fg_vs   fg     hourly.2016-08-23_0505 valid

  2. View the Snapshot copies for the constituents of the FlexGroup volume: volume snapshot show -is-constituent true

    cluster1::> volume snapshot show -is-constituent true
                                                                 ---Blocks---
Vserver  Volume   Snapshot                                  Size Total% Used%
-------- -------- ------------------------------------- -------- ------ -----
fg_vs    fg__0001
                  hourly.2016-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%
         fg__0002
                  hourly.2016-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%
         fg__0003
                  hourly.2016-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%
...
         fg__0016
                  hourly.2016-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%