Snapshots & backups

Two ways to save a pod, for two different situations:

• A snapshot rewinds the pod you have, in place. Fast. Reach for it before a risky change.
• A backup is an off-node copy that restores as a new pod. Your original stays put. Reach for it for disaster recovery, or to spin up a copy.

Same slots on both: 4 manual + 1 auto per pod by default (your exact allowance is under Settings -> Account). The concepts page has the side-by-side table if you want it. Keeping them costs nothing - both are free.

Snapshots

Take one

1. Open the pod in the console.
2. Snapshots tab.
3. Create snapshot. It runs in the background and lands in a few seconds to a minute.

Four manual snapshots per pod. Full? Delete one first.

Restore one

1. Snapshots tab, find the snapshot.
2. Restore, confirm.

The pod rewinds in place and shows Restoring while it works. It needs to be Running or Stopped first - you don't have to stop it yourself; the restore takes care of that. When it's done, the pod sits stopped on the snapshot's state - start it again when you're ready.

Restoring is destructive

Anything written after the snapshot is gone. Want to keep the current state too? Take a manual snapshot first, then restore.

Automatic snapshots

Snapshots tab → Schedule dropdown → pick one:

• Daily - every day at 3:00 AM UTC.
• Weekly - every Sunday at 3:00 AM UTC.
• Monthly - the 1st of the month at 3:00 AM UTC.
• Disabled - off.

The auto snapshot uses its own slot and rotates - each run replaces the last auto snapshot. Your 4 manual ones are never touched.

Backups

Take one

1. Open the pod.
2. Backups tab.
3. Create backup. This is a full off-node export, so it takes longer than a snapshot.

Four manual backups per pod, same as snapshots. Auto schedule works the same way (Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Disabled).

Restore one (into a new pod)

Restoring a backup builds a new pod from the copy and leaves your original alone.

1. Backups tab (or the account-wide backups list).
2. Restore, optionally name the new pod, confirm.

Because it creates a pod, a restore uses a slot from your pod limit and needs at least $3 credit. The new pod comes up in Restoring.

Clone a pod

Want a copy of a live pod without dealing with a saved backup first? Clone it - same Region, same network, brand-new pod. It also uses a pod slot and needs credit.

Which do I want?

Snapshot before you upgrade a package, edit a config, or try something you might regret - you want the fastest possible undo on this pod. Back up when you'd want the pod back even if the original were gone - a bad disk day, a fat-fingered rm -rf, or migrating to a fresh copy.

Belt and braces: turn on an auto snapshot and an auto backup on anything holding data you can't recreate.

Via the API

Everything here is in the API too - see snapshots and backups.