About archive and standard disk snapshots

Standard snapshots incrementally back up data on a disk. After you create a snapshot, you can use it to create a new disk containing the captured data. Standard snapshots provide geo-redundant backups of a single disk. A snapshot captures the contents of a disk whether or not the disk is attached to a running virtual machine (VM) instance. To backup an entire VM or multiple disks at once, create a machine image. For other scenarios, see the chart describing data backup options.

The lifecycle of a snapshot created from a disk attached to a running VM instance is independent of the lifecycle of the VM instance.

Snapshot types

You can backup a Persistent Disk with snapshots. The 3 types of snapshots—standard, instant, and archive—all capture the contents of a disk at a specific point-in-time.

The following are the key differences between the snapshot types:

Retention after source disk deletion

An instant snapshot of a disk only exists until the source disk is deleted. Standard and archive snapshots aren't deleted with the source disk. Therefore, if you want to retain a backup of a disk after you delete the disk itself, use archive or standard snapshots.

Data recovery time

The data recovery time is the length of time needed to create a new disk from a snapshot and varies by snapshot type.

  • Instant snapshots offer the lowest and best recovery times.
  • Standard snapshots have faster data recovery times than archive snapshots.
  • Archive snapshots have the longest data recovery times, but offer the most cost efficient storage.

Storage location by snapshot type

The storage location is the zone or region where Compute Engine stores the snapshot.

  • Instant snapshots are local disk backups that are stored in the same zone or region as the source disk.
  • Archive and standard snapshots are remote backups of disk data stored separately from the source disk.

Compute Engine stores archive and standard snapshots in the same manner. Copies of archive and standard snapshots are stored across multiple locations with automatic checksums to ensure the integrity of your data.

Unless otherwise specified, references to standard snapshots include archive snapshots.

Snapshot type comparison

The following table compares the differences between the types of snapshots:

Snapshot type Best for Storage redundancy Support for Hyperdisk Can be created with snapshot schedules Deleted on source disk deletion
Standard snapshots Geo-redundant data backup to safeguard against local, zonal, and regional outages. Redundant storage across multiple regions. Yes Yes No
Archive snapshots Same as standard snapshots, but for data that is rarely accessed and must be retained for several months or years. Lower cost geo-redundant storage that is better suited for data related to compliance, audits, and cold-storage. Redundant storage across multiple regions. Yes No No
Instant snapshots In-place data backup to enable quick restore to a new disk in case of user error or application corruption. Not redundant. Stored in the same zone or region as source disk only. No No Yes

In addition to snapshots, Compute Engine offers other data backup options. Review the chart describing data backup options.

The information in this document applies to standard snapshots. Learn more About instant snapshots.

Archive snapshots

Standard and archive snapshots differ primarily in storage location and cost.

Archive snapshots have the same benefits as standard snapshots including incremental chains, compression, and encryption.

However, archive snapshots are lower-cost and are better suited for use cases related to compliance, audit, and long-term cold storage. If you require snapshot retention for many months or years and rarely need to access snapshots, consider using archive snapshots instead of standard snapshots. Each snapshot type is stored in separate incremental snapshot chains, and archive snapshots are listed separately in the Google Cloud console.

Work with standard snapshots

  • To learn how to back up disks with snapshots, see Creating snapshots. You can create a snapshot of your disk before you attempt a potentially dangerous operation, so that you can revert the change in case your results are unexpected.

  • To learn how to restore the contents of a snapshot to a new disk, see Restoring snapshots.

  • If you no longer need a specific snapshot, you can reduce storage costs by deleting the snapshot.

  • To reduce the risk of unexpected data loss, consider the best practice of setting up a snapshot schedule to ensure your data is regularly backed up.

Access standard snapshots

Limitations

  • You can't create a snapshot of a Hyperdisk volume that's in multi-writer mode. Disable multi-writer mode for the disk, then create the snapshot.

  • You can't change the storage location of an existing standard snapshot. See Selecting the storage location for a snapshot.

  • You can snapshot a specific disk at most 6 times every 60 minutes. For more information, see Snapshot frequency limits.

  • You can't edit the data stored in a snapshot.

  • You can't recover deleted snapshots.

  • You can create an unlimited number of standard snapshots of a given disk.

How incremental standard snapshots work

Snapshots are incremental, so you can create regular snapshots on a Persistent Disk or Hyperdisk faster and at a lower cost compared to regularly creating a full image of the disk.

Incremental snapshots work as follows:

  • The first successful snapshot of a disk is a full snapshot that contains all the data on the disk.
  • The second snapshot only contains any new data or modified data since the first snapshot. Data that hasn't changed since snapshot 1 isn't included. Instead, snapshot 2 contains references to snapshot 1 for any unchanged data.
  • Snapshot 3 contains any new or changed data since snapshot 2 but won't contain any unchanged data from snapshot 1 or 2. Instead, snapshot 3 contains references to blocks in snapshot 1 and snapshot 2 for any unchanged data.

This repeats for all subsequent snapshots of the disk. Snapshots are always created based on the last successful snapshot taken.

How to create a snapshot

Snapshot deletion

Compute Engine uses incremental snapshots so that each snapshot contains only the data that has changed since the previous snapshot. For unchanged data, snapshots reference the data in previous snapshots. Storage costs for Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk snapshots charge only for the total size of the snapshot.

When you delete a standard snapshot, it's deleted outright if the snapshot has no dependent snapshots.

However, if you delete a snapshot that has dependent snapshots, the following occurs:

  1. Any data that is required for restoring other snapshots is moved into the next snapshot, increasing its size.
  2. Any data that is not required for restoring other snapshots is deleted. This lowers the total size of all your snapshots.
  3. The next snapshot no longer references the snapshot marked for deletion, and instead references the snapshot before it.

Because subsequent snapshots might require information stored in a previous snapshot, keep in mind that deleting a snapshot does not necessarily delete all the data on the snapshot. To definitively delete data from your snapshots, you should delete all snapshots.

If your disk has a snapshot schedule, you must detach the snapshot schedule from the disk before you can delete the schedule. Removing the snapshot schedule from the disk prevents further snapshot activity from occurring. You cannot delete a schedule that is attached to a disk. You have the option to manually delete snapshots at any time.

The following diagram shows this process:

The process for deleting a snapshot.

Snapshot size and deleted blocks

Snapshots capture parts of the disk that were written to and not discarded. Depending on the disk file system configuration, sometimes deleted files are not discarded. If this happens, you might see that the size of your snapshot is larger than the used space on the disk reported by the file system. To avoid this, it is a best practice to enable the discard option or run fstrim on your disk.

Snapshot chains

You can create standard snapshots in distinct snapshot chains by specifying a snapshot chain name at the time of the snapshot creation. When you create multiple standard snapshots of a Persistent Disk using a chain name, each new snapshot is based incrementally on the last successful snapshot created with that chain name. Use snapshot chains only if you are an advanced service owner and you need to create separate snapshot chains, for example, for chargeback tracking.

You can specify a snapshot chain name during standard snapshot creation by using the gcloud CLI, REST, or Terraform.

When you create a snapshot, you have the option of creating a standard snapshot or an archive snapshot. Archive snapshots have the same benefits as standard snapshots including incremental chains, compression, and encryption. However, archive snapshots are lower-cost and are better suited for use cases related to compliance, audit, and long-term cold storage. If you require snapshot retention for many months or years and rarely need to access snapshots, consider using archive snapshots instead of standard snapshots. Each snapshot type is stored in separate incremental snapshot chains, and archive snapshots are listed separately in the Google Cloud console.

Snapshot storage location

Every time you create a snapshot of a disk, Google Cloud stores your snapshot in a specific storage location. Regardless of a snapshot's storage location, you can use the snapshot to create a new disk in any region and zone. However, the location of a snapshot affects its availability and you can incur networking costs when you create the snapshot or restore it to a new disk.

Types of storage locations

Snapshots can be stored in either of the following location types:

A multi-regional storage location provides the highest availability and resilience. A regional storage location gives you more control over the physical location of your data because you specify a single region.

If you need to comply with corporate or government data-placement policies, store your snapshot in the nearest regional location that complies with these policies.

If your app is not deployed in part of a multi-region and you want to prioritize low networking costs over high snapshot availability, store your snapshot in the region where your source disk is located. Storing your snapshot in the region where your source disk is located minimizes networking costs for restoring and creating snapshots from that source disk.

However, unlike a multi-regional storage location, a regional storage location stores your data across multiple zones in a single region, and your data might not be accessible if a regional disruption occurs. To ensure the availability of your data, you might also want to store a redundant snapshot in a second location.

If you have an organization policy that includes the resource locations constraint, then any snapshot storage location that you specify must be in the set of locations defined by the constraint. See Compute Engine resource locations for more information.

Choose a storage location

You can choose where to store the snapshots for your project in one of the following ways:

  • Use the predefined or customized default storage location configured in snapshot settings. The storage location policy of snapshot settings defines the default location where Google Cloud stores all your project's snapshots. Although Google Cloud maintains a predefined default storage location policy, snapshot settings allow you to customize this policy and configure your own default storage location:

    • Use the Google Cloud predefined default location. Until you update snapshot settings for the first time, Google Cloud maintains a predefined value for the storage location policy. This predefined default location is the multi-region that is closest to the source disk. For more information, see Google Cloud predefined storage location policy
    • Set your own customized default location. To customize the default storage location for your project's snapshots, you must update the storage location policy of your snapshot settings. After you update snapshot settings and configure your own default, Google Cloud starts using this newly configured location to store all your future snapshots. For more information, see Update snapshot settings for your project.

  • Override snapshot settings and manually specify the location during snapshot creation. Alternatively, you can override your snapshot settings and manually specify a location of your choice when you create a snapshot. You can use this option to choose a different location for specific snapshots on an operational basis. To learn how to specify location during snapshot creation, see Create a snapshot of Persistent Disk volume.

When to choose the Google Cloud predefined default location

Some example use cases for using the multi-region, that is predefined in your snapshot settings, as your storage location include the following:

  • The default multi-region location meets corporate or government data-placement policies.
  • Your disk is stored in a regional location (like us-central1) that is part of a multi-region location (us), and you prefer higher snapshot availability at the risk of slower snapshot restoration performance.
  • You don't expect your snapshots to be frequently restored to disks that are located outside of the default snapshot storage location.

When to choose your own storage location

Some example use cases for using a custom storage location, either by updating or overriding your snapshot settings, include the following:

  • The custom multi-region location meets corporate or government data-placement policies.
  • Your app is deployed in a region that is not included in one of the Cloud Storage multi-regional locations and you want to prioritize snapshot restoration performance over snapshot availability.
  • You restore your snapshots multiple times from a disk located outside of the default snapshot storage location.

You can't modify the storage location of existing snapshots. If you want to store your disk snapshot in a new location, create a new snapshot in your chosen location and then delete the snapshot in the older location. If you need to store a snapshot in more than one location, you must create a snapshot in each location. When you create a new snapshot in a new location, a full snapshot gets created with all the data on the disk.

Network costs

Network charges apply for the creation or restoration of all multi-regional standard snapshots when a disk is in a member region of the multi-region. If you don't require the additional replication and resilience of multi-regional snapshots, we recommend using regional snapshots by specifying a regional location when snapshots are created.

Selecting your snapshot storage location is vital to minimizing network costs. If you store your snapshot in the same region as your source disk, there is no network charge when you access that snapshot from the same region. If you access the snapshot from a different region, there is a network cost. Network costs are incurred when a snapshot is created in a different region from the source disk, and when a snapshot is restored to a disk in a different region from the snapshot.

There is a network charge for cross-region access. For example, if your source disk is in asia-east1 and you store your snapshots in asia-east2, you will incur a network cost when you access your snapshot between those two regions.

Two regions, australia-southeast1 and southamerica-east1, have a default multi-region snapshot storage location that will incur network costs unless you change the storage location. You can modify the storage location using snapshot settings or manually override the default location during snapshot creation:

  • If your source disk is in australia-southeast1, the default snapshot storage location is in the asia multi-region. To reduce costs, store your snapshots in the australia-southeast1 region instead.
  • If your source disk is in southamerica-east1, the default snapshot storage location is in the us multi-region. To reduce costs, store your snapshots in the southamerica-east1 region instead.

If you restore a snapshot to a disk in a region that isn't included in the snapshot's storage location you will incur a network cost. For example, if you create a new regional Persistent Disk in australia-southeast1 from a snapshot stored in asia, a multi-regional location, you will incur network costs.

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