Cloudfanatic offers two ways to copy servers and prevent data loss: to create backups and to create snapshots. Although backups and snapshots serve more or less the same purpose, they have differences:
Snapshots:
Snapshot is a quick (almost instant) and easy way to create and restore a copy of your server with just a single click. They are stored on the same storage as your server, thus they should not be used as backups, as if there is a catastrophic failure of the storage you will lose both your server and your snapshots.
WARNING: Snapshots will become unusable or disappear from your panel if you:
- Reinstall your server
- Restore server from backup
- Upgrade your server
Backups:
Backups create a copy of your server, just like snapshots, but the backup is kept on a separate storage. As such backups can take a long time to create and to restore depending on the size of your drive, however they are not affected by the state of the storage your server resides on. Backups are not affected by reinstalls or rolling backup of snapshots and are always available for restoration regardless of the actions you perform on your server.
