Combination of the services Backups and snapshots are reliable way of keeping your data and state of OS safe and sound, especially if you work with the data, run server maintenance or update. Both have their uses and specifics, that we will introduce in this article.
BACKUPS
Backup feature serves for safe storage of the data of your server, that is made via reserved optical network to a different datacenter (that is located on the other side of the Bratislava). Backups are created on the file system level via rsync over all addresses (except those where “cache” is in the way), along with these backups you can do a dump of databases. It serves for restorng your website or its parts.
Backups are available for 14 days, while the first backup is complete and others are differential – that means the backup is made only from the changes, that were noticed, since other files are already created. Backups for Linux distributions are available as mountpoint /backup.
SNAPSHOTS
Snapshots serve for storing the current state of OS of your virtual server, use them e.g. in a case of updating VPS parts or change of configuration. How to create and restore snapshots is later in this guide.
When restoring a snapshot, a whole image of the disk is retrieved, therefore you cannot restore only specific files or directories, as in backup. Each snapshot is stored for 28 days, while one is available for free, others can be bought for 4.9 EUR / month.
You can for example imagine your work desk, where you have all your things. Painters are on the way, so you will create a photo of the desk – if you later find out, that some of the item are not where they should be, thanks to the photo you can place them exactly as they were before the messy painters messed your desk up. That’s a snapshot. If they would have destroyed your favorite mug, you will simply put a new one from the backup, you have 14 of them anyway..