Dell PowerStore Protecting Your Data

Snapshots are read-only copies that can be used to save the current state of an object. You can use snapshots to quickly recover data if there is corruption or user error. Snapshots cannot be directly accessed by a host.

Thin clones are writable copies of a snapshot, volume, or volume group that can be accessed by a host. Thin clones can be created directly as a copy of the parent object or using one of its snapshots. Both snapshots and thin clones are space efficient copies that share data blocks with their parent object.

Using snapshots and thin clones for partial recovery of a volume

You can use snapshots and thin clones to recover part of a volume, such as individual files or database records, from a previous point in time. First, create a thin clone using the snapshot that contains the data you need to recover. Then, provide host access to the clone, and recover data from the host.

Using snapshots to restore a volume or volume group

You can use snapshots to roll back a volume to a previous point of time, if there is corruption. To revert a volume or volume group to a previous point in time, use the volume restore operation and supply a snapshot from before the corruption occurred. The restore operation is instantaneous. You can also create a backup snapshot to save the state of the volume or volume group before you use the restore operation.

Using thin clones to test a patch before applying it to the production volume

Before installing a patch or software update of a critical application on a volume, you can take a thin clone of the volume, then apply the update to the thin clone. After you have installed the update and verified that the update is safe for your environment, you can install the update on the other volumes.

Create thin clones for development use

Instead of provisioning volumes or volume groups for each individual developer, you can create thin clones. Creating thin clones of the volume or volume group enables you to distribute the same data and configuration to each developer. The thin clones also take up less space than if you had created a full clone of the volume, or provisioned individual volumes or volume groups. You can also take snapshots of thin clones and replicate them.