The recovery process reads all the files in a sequential order starting with the parent disk file followed by the related delta files. If the latter is deleted or corrupted, then you can no longer recreate the VM. Note though that the child disks are directly dependent on the corresponding parent disk.

This allows for quicker versioning and enhances protection against data loss incidents. The first snapshot is an exact image of your machine and the subsequent snapshots collect the changed data blocks only.

The system creates child disks for each source disk of every snapshot. All changes are captured and written to newly-created delta disk files that are stored in the same folder as the base disk.

When you take a snapshot, the state of the base virtual disk is recorded and maintained at that moment. Snapshots are generally used to restore a VM after a system failure, bad update or error. It preserves the state and the data of the VM including its power state (on, off or suspended) and all its files such as disks, memory and network interface cards. Read on to discover the differences between snapshots and backups.Ī snapshot is an exact record of a machine or system at a specific point in time. This post explains both methods and lists their pros and cons. They have varying use cases and cannot be used interchangeably. However, snapshots are not an alternative to backups. Snapshots and backups may seem to serve the same purpose at first glance since they both allow you to recover data.

In fact, more than 91% of organizations rely on backups to protect their data and mitigate the consequences of cyber threats and disasters. Backups and snapshots are two popular methods that enterprises use to mitigate and avoid data loss.

Azure take snapshot of vm