Can I copy the snapshots to a separate CIFS share for storage?

[BZHANG2012]

I have a need to retain more than 255 snapshots. Is it possible for me to copy those snapshots to another place such as another CIFS share for long term storage?

It looks like Robocopy works but I'd like to use some other tools such as SecureCopy to copy them.

[rwelshman]

Use can use ndmp to backup the snapshots.

You could also clone the volume using the latest snapshot and let it hold the original snapshots while the source volume cycles through the current ones. How many snapshots are you wanting to keep? Snapshots aren't really a great method of long term backups as it uses the same storage as the original volume.

SnapVault might be a possibility if you have the license.

[BZHANG2012]

I have a need to create a daily incremental for my backup, meaning:

Day 1: full backup

Day 2: increment backup saved in a separate folder called Day 2

Day 3: increment backup saved in a separate folder called Day 3

Day 4: increment backup saved in a separate folder called Day 4

I need to keep those incrementals indefinitely, and I need to have the option to delete certain files within all these backups.

If I could copy snapshots out to a separate folder, I could achieve that but it looks like each snapshot is the same size as the volume. 😞

[yannb]

Snapshots are a point in time representation of the blocks making up the volume at that instant.

If you copy them to another volume, using ndmp or CIFS copy from a windows client, you are going to copy over the entire content of what that snapshot represents, whereas before it could have actually take a few gigs on disk, it will use the overlapp capacity of the volume, so that's generally not a good idea.

If you want to export specific snapshots, you should use SnapVault, but you still an't remove individual files from a snapshot.

[rwelshman]

If that is your end goal, snapshots won't be the best solution. You would have to look at some other outside tool to manage the backups - perhaps via a server that maps the share to a local drive.