Volume backups

Scheduled backups service can be used to set up the automatic creation of backups — disk’s full backups. Backups can be created only for system and additional disks of virtual servers.

Creation of the Backups is automized and by the schedule. The schedule is configured in the Control Panel using the backup plan - by the days of the week, interval time of creation, and number of copies. In the plan, it is necessary to specify how often disk backups will be created and how many backups to store at the same time.

It is worth noting that the backup contains only the data that was on the disk at the time the backup was made. All data that was in the memory of the virtual server and was not written on disk will not be included in the backup.

Initially, a snapshot of the disk is created and a backup copy is taken from the copy, not from the disk so there is no increase in workload on the virtual server.

Quick volume backup

  1. In the Control Panel go to the “Cloud” / “Volumes” section.

  2. Select the required disk and click “More”.

  3. Next, go to the Backups tab.

  4. Click the “Create backup” button.

  5. In the opened field enter the name of the creating backup.

  6. Click the “Create backup” button.

  7. A message “Backup has been created!” will appear in the lower left corner as well as the information about the date and time of creation, the name of the copy, the size of the copy, and the button to delete the copy.

Note

During the process of the volume’s backup the other actions on the volume are temporarily unavailable.

After the backup is completed the copy status will change from creating to available.

Automatic volume backup

  1. In the Control Panel go to the “Cloud” / “Volumes” section.

  2. Select the required disk and click “More”.

  3. At the bottom of the page in the Automatic backup section click the “Turn on” button.

4. The next step is to set up a backup schedule. Specify the days of the week when you want your backup to be created, the time you want to create a backup, and how many copies to keep. .. note:: The backup’s creation time is specified in the UTC time zone.

  1. Click “Save”.

  2. All created copies can be viewed or deleted in the Control Panel in the “Cloud” / “Volume backups” section.

Important

The service is provided for free, but there is a fee for data storage.

Disk restoring from a backup

Caution

Scheduled backups do not have automatic performance and consistency checks. We recommend restoring periodically from backups to check that the restore works correctly.

Hint

During the process of restoring a new disk with the same size as the original is created.

Hint

The restored volume can be connected to a virtual server or the volume can be used to create a new virtual server.

  1. In the Control Panel go to the “Cloud” / “Volume backups” section.

  2. Select the required, click the down arrow button, and select “Restore” from the drop-down list, or click “More” for detailed information about the copy and then “Restore”.

  3. Restore volume from backup page opens.

  4. Specify a name for the new disk.

  5. Choose one of the volume tariff plans.

  6. Select the volume’s availability zone.

  7. For the creation of the backup copies of a new disk connect the automatic volume backup service and set up a schedule.

  8. Click “Create volume”.

  9. The new disk will appear in the Control Panel in section “Cloud / Volumes”. Wait for the changing of the volume’s state from RESTORING-BACKUP to AVAILABLE. The volume was created as an additional one but can also be used as a system disk to create a virtual server.

Automatic deletion of volume backups

Backups are deleted automatically according to the settings of the number of copies in storage.

When the volume is backed up, the service checks the total number of disk copies, if it is greater than the specified storage limit, the service deletes the oldest copy.

Backups will be preserved if the volume or virtual server is removed.