Backups in Compute Cloud
Data contained in images, snapshots, and disks that are not attached to VMs is stored securely and replicated within the Yandex Cloud infrastructure.
To back up the data from disks attached to VMs, you need to create disk snapshots on a regular basis. You can do this both manually and automatically, on schedule.
To restore a VM from a disk snapshot, you can:
- Create a new disk from a snapshot, and then attach the created disk to a VM.
- Create a new VM from a set of snapshots. In the operation parameters, you can specify both boot and regular disk snapshots.
You cannot recover a boot disk of an existing VM from a snapshot or image. However, you can create a new VM to recover a boot disk from a snapshot. To recover a boot disk on an existing VM, use Yandex Cloud Backup.
Comparison with backups in Cloud Backup
In Cloud Backup, you can create full and incremental backups of virtual machines along with boot disks and restore VMs from these backups. VM backups are application-consistent: they save not only the data stored on disks but also the data already sent but not yet fully written.
With Cloud Backup, you can restore individual files and directories from a backup.
To enable backups on a VM, connect the VM to Cloud Backup and link it to a backup policy. The provider must support the VM operating system.
| Disk snapshots in Compute Cloud | Cloud Backup | |
|---|---|---|
| Granularity | Disk | VMs with all disks. We may also add support for VM application backups. |
| Disk types | Network SSDs and HDDs | Any: Network SSD and HDD, non-replicated disks, and local disks on dedicated hosts |
| Application awareness | No | To be implemented |
| Pricing | Per disk | Per VM |
| Required VM status | You can create a snapshot on stopped or running VMs. | You can only create a backup on a running VM with an agent installed. |