topic Re: Snapshot Naming :: when Ontap uses Dot or Tilde in ONTAP Discussions

Snapshot Naming :: when Ontap uses Dot or Tilde

jenoptik — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 21:48:33 GMT

Hi everyone,

When and why does Ontap creates a snapshot folder with the . and when with a ~.

example:

\\filer\volume-share$\.snapshot

All my other snapshot directories are available through \\...\~snapshot

Why is there a difference?

Thx 4 any answer

Jenoptik,

Re: Snapshot Naming :: when Ontap uses Dot or Tilde

hariprak — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 05:16:19 GMT

Hi,

By default, every volume contains a directory named .snapshot through which users can access old versions of files in that directory. Users can gain access to Snapshot copies depending on the file-sharing protocol used—NFS or CIFS.

The actual path to the snapshots is the directory name .snapshot.

Thanks

Re: Snapshot Naming :: when Ontap uses Dot or Tilde

jenoptik — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 10:45:05 GMT

Thx 4 your answer.

good to know that .snapshot is the default directory.

But why is there a ~snapshot directory and when it is visible?

As far as I understand this Netapp Library Entry the ~snapshot is only visible, when accessing the root of a volume and and .snapshot in root and also subfolders.

Can anyone confirm this?

Re: Snapshot Naming :: when Ontap uses Dot or Tilde

parisi — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 15:13:16 GMT

~ is generally used for CIFS/SMB 8.3 naming compliance.

http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/samba/book/ch05_04.html