TechTips - How to Create, Configure and Access a NETAPP SnapShot

A valuable resource of a NETAPP SAN Storage box is the ability to create snapshots of your data stores on the SAN. The SnapShot utility is very helpful and it has a lot of great aspects to it, like there is no real performance overhead, it takes only a few seconds to create, you can make one on the fly or schedule one to be created, it's basically an instant backup of the volume you choose, and you can restore a single file or a complete volume from the SnapShot. So as you can see this is a very powerful tool that comes with your NETAPP SAN and you should know how to use it. SnapShots also are read-only so you can't accidentally delete files from them, nice little feature so you don't lose any data. The SnapShot can also be made visible for Windows and Linux so you can browse the folder and copy files.

So how do you create a SnapShot? Follow these instructions:

1 - Open Internet Explorer (Firefox, or your favorite Web Browser)

2 - Type in http://NETAPP_IP/na_admin

3 - If prompted type in your Username and Password (default is root and no password)

4 - Click on FilerView Link

5 - Again if prompted type in your Username and Password (default is root and no password)

6 - Click on Volumes

7 - Click on SnapShots

8 - Click on Manage

Now you have a few options once you get to this point. You can click the Add SnapShot link at the top of the screen, this will open a wizard and you can go through creating a new SnapShot. If you already have a SnapShot created then you can select it in the drop down menu in the middle of the screen and choose View. This will show you the options selected for the current SnapShot, you can edit these and save the SnapShot again to change the settings. For this guide we will choose Add SnapShot at the top, so click that link now and continue on.

1 - On the next page you have two options, you will want to choose the volume you want to create a SnapShot on (mine was vol0) and then you will want to name your SnapShot, I named mine TEST.

2 - Click Add

3 - You should get a message saying the SnapShot was created successfully

Now the next step in the process is to make the SnapShot visible to Windows/Linux. To do this follow these steps (Start from FilerView):

1 - Click CIFS

2 - Click Configure

3 - Click Options

4 - Under Show SnapShot make sure it is set to YES

5 - Click Apply

You also have to make sure that the specific volume is set to Visible for SnapShots, to do this follow these steps (Start from FilerView):

1 - Click Volumes

2 - Click SnapShots

3 - Click Configure

4 - Make sure the checkbox by SnapShot Directory Visible is checked

5 - Click Apply

Now you have a snapshot that you can restore files from, this should be accessible from Windows and Linux and you can test it by copying files from it to your desktop. You can get to the directory by typing in your Start bar \\NETAPP_IP\Home\~snapshot this should show all of your current SnapShots that you have being saved on your SAN. You can restore any file you want from this directory to your PC, another server, or back onto the SAN. You can't delete these, like I said before they are read-only and will result in an error if you try to delete a file or folder.

Well there you have it a quick and easy reference guide on how to create, configure, and use a SnapShot of one of your volumes on your NETAPP SAN. Hope this helps you get started creating SnapShots.