Restore specific data with snapshots

This page provides details about restoring specific data you select from a snapshot.

About snapshot-based data restoration

You can use snapshots to restore deleted or corrupted files and directories using file access operations based on your operating system.

Restore data using a Linux client

Snapshots are accessible using the UNIX-like file system on Linux operating systems. To restore data using a Linux client, enable the Make snapshot directory visible option in the volume snapshot schedule section. A .snapshot directory appears in the mount point of the volumes.

Example of data restoration on a Linux client

The following example shows a sequence of file operations on a volume mounted to a Linux client. The volume contains two files and one snapshot. In this example, the user deletes a file and uses the snapshot to restore the latest version of the file from the newest snapshot:

    $ df -h .

    Filesystem                      Size  Used  Avail Use%  Mounted on
    10.31.240.4:/example-volume-1   1.0T  4.5M  1.0T    1%  /netapp

    $ ls

    chinook.db  readme.txt

    $ rm chinook.db

    $ ls -la .

    total 12
    drwxrwxrwx  2 root    root    4096 May 31 15:02 .
    drwxr-xr-x 20 root    root    4096 May 31 13:42 ..
    drwxrwxrwx  3 root    root    4096 May 31 14:35 .snapshot
    -rw-rw-r--  1 ubuntu  ubuntu    14 May 31 14:24 readme.txt

    $ ls .snapshot

    hourly.2022-05-31_1435

    $ ls .snapshot/hourly.2022-05-31_1435

    chinook.db  readme.txt

    $ cp .snapshot/hourly.2022-05-31_1435/chinook.db .

    $ ls

    chinook.db  readme.txt

Restore data using a Windows client

To restore data using a Windows client, enable the Make snapshot directory visible option in the volume snapshot schedule section. You can then access snapshots using the Previous Versions tab of the File Explorer property window. To restore a file, drag it from a snapshot folder to its original location.

Example of data restoration on a Windows client

The following example shows you how to access snapshots using the ~snapshot file path:

    Z:\dir z:\~snapshot
    Volume in drive Z is restore-example-1
    Volume Serial Number is 8080-F15D

    Directory of z:\~snapshot

    05/31/2022  04:08 PM    <DIR>        ..
    05/31/2022  03:59 PM    <DIR>        hourly.2022-05-31-1600
    05/31/2022  04:02 PM    <DIR>        hourly.2022-05-31_1605
                  0 File(s)            0 bytes
                  3 Dir(s)             0 bytes free

    Z:\>

What's next

About backups.