can these snapshots be deleted?

[RANJBASSI]

Hi

Just had a quick question which I am hoping some can help with.

I am trying to recover space from the aggregate and I have noticed some snapshots which dont make sense to me. As we only had the NetApp for a few months I think its a lack of knowledge of how the Snapshots work, for the majority I know how the snapshots are created. They are either from:

Snapmirror jobs

VMware VSC backup jobs

snapvault jobs.

Flexclones

Now my question is I understand the snapshots that have been created via VSC which are the jobs which start with smvi...... and I know about the top jobs which are snapmirror jobs but I dont understand why there are snapshots going back to 06/12/2014 and are shown at the bottom. Are these snapshots that can be safely deleted? if so I assume there is no dependeny to these?

I am guessing the ones with clone at the start are flexclones I have created by using the option 'create new snapshot at new flexclone' and then i have later deleted the flexclone but the snapshot still remains? I am guessing these can also be deleted.

Any helps on this would be most appreciated.

Thanks

[JGPSHNTAP]

It's not good practice for someone on the forum to recommend you delete snapshots, b/c in a way they are your backup.

The advice I would give you would be if you do not require those backups anymore,and they aren't needed, then it "shoud" be safe to delete without issue.

[RANJBASSI]

Thanks, I see what you mean. 

I am guessing unless the snapshots are tied in with snapmirror/vault they are effectively they are their own seperate entity and dont have dependences on other snapshots?

When snapmirror/vault performs its very first job I am assume it does the baseline for the volume and done after that its smaller incrementals. If i delete the first snapshot does it mean next time it runs it would need to do the larger baseline backup again? Is that information held in the first snapshot is that why its still there?

Thanks

[rwelshman]

The snapmirror relationship is maintained by a common snapshot between the source and destination. As long as there is one common, the relationship wouldn't have to do a full baseline. The snapmirror snapshot should show as "locked" as well. For snapvault, there will be additional snapshots on the source and destination but there will still need to be at least one common one.

In most cases, a snapshot that is being used to maintain a relationship will be locked by the system. But it is a good practice to ensure that the purpose of a snapshot is well known before being condfident about removing it.