Snapshots:
Snapshot is a quick (almost instant) and easy way to create and restore a copy of your server with just a single click. Think of this as a temporary "Undo" button before making small tweaks. Snapshots capture disk changes instantly and take seconds to restore, but they are designed to be deleted within a few hours.
Example Snapshot Use Cases:
- Editing Configuration Files: Tweaking Nginx, Apache, PHP.ini, or firewall rules. If a typo breaks your web server, you can revert instantly.
- Installing an SSL Certificate: Quick security updates where only a few light configuration files and cert files are written.
- Testing Small Code Updates: Deploying a minor hotfix or single bug fix to a custom application or website script.
- Restarting/Reconfiguring Services: Modifying daemon settings or environment variables where a quick rollback might be needed if services fail to start.
The total amount of change that one snapshot can hold is 1GB. If you are making changes inside your server that exceed 1GB is size, the snapshot will become invalid. In this case you need to perform a backup rather than a snapshot.
Always delete the snapshot once you confirm your changes work. Never leave a snapshot running for days.
WARNING: Snapshots will become unusable or disappear from your panel if you:
- Reinstall your server
- Restore server from backup
- Upgrade your server
- Exceed 1GB in data changed on your disk
Backups:
Think of this as an insurance policy for your entire server.
Full backups save your entire server state without any write limits and are safe for long-term storage.
Backups can take a longer time to create and to restore depending on the size of your drive.
Backups are not affected by anything and are always available for restoration regardless of the actions you perform within your server.
