This page provides details about volume backups.
About volume backups
NetApp Volumes supports volume backups, which are copies of your volumes stored independently from the volume. Backups are stored in backup vaults, which are containers for backups. If a volume is lost or deleted, you can use backups to restore your data to a new volume.
When you create the first backup of a volume, all of the volume's used data is sent to the backup vault. Subsequent backups of the same volume only include data that has changed from the previous backup. This allows for fast incremental-forever backups and reduces the required capacity inside the backup vault.
You can create manual and scheduled backups. Manual backups can be taken from a volume or from an existing volume snapshot. Scheduled backups require a backup policy.
Considerations
Backups aren't supported for volumes protected with customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK).
Backups aren't supported for large capacity volumes.
Backups are supported in Preview for volumes with Flex service level.
Backups are supported with volume replication. Source volumes allow you to use scheduled backups or to create manual backups. For destination volumes, you must use manual backups. If you try to assign a backup policy to a destination volume, it will fail. When you reverse a volume replication direction, remove the backup policy first from the future destination volume.
Before you use VPC Service Controls, see Limitations of VPC Service Controls for NetApp Volumes for more information.
Backups can only be created in backup vaults that are located in the same region as the original data volumes.
About backup vaults
A backup vault is the location where backups are stored. You can only create one backup vault per region. A vault can hold multiple backups for multiple volumes in that region.
About backup policies
A backup policy is used to schedule backups at regular daily, weekly, or monthly intervals. Backup policies allow you to attach a backup schedule to a volume. The policy defines how many backups to retain at daily, weekly, or monthly intervals.
Volume backup workflow
You must complete the following steps to successfully set up volume backups for NetApp Volumes:
Choose where to store your backups by creating a backup vault for your volume's region.
Choose when to back up your data by creating a backup policy (schedule) to capture how many daily, weekly, and monthly backup versions to retain. This action isn't required for manually triggered backups.