What are the differences between Snapshots and Backup in Virtual Machines?

1. We live in an Information Age, an age where Information Technology has overtaken traditional forms of data collection and storage. Particularly in today’s date, more and more businesses are coming online as it helps reach a wider audience. However with this comes the need to maintain the data on the web. At the same time, regular hardware and software upgrades are also important, but they lead to loss of old data if necessary steps aren’t taken. This where we the need for Snapshots and Backup arises. Today, we shall understand what these are as well as the difference between both. Snapshots In simple words, it’s a way of storing the data of a virtual machine at the state which it was in, when the snapshot was taken. What this means is that a snapshot captures all your data as it is. Whatever files, folders were there and whether the system was powered ON or OFF, it’s all saved and stored by a snapshot. This is useful because a software update usually formats the system and all your data is lost. Therefore, if you’re not satisfied with the upgrades and want to return to the previous form, you can revert back to the snapshot, which has all the previous features saved. Backups

2. A backup is a relatively well known term, as it takes place in all kinds of devices nowadays. Backups basically refer to copying all the existing data of a system to a server or to the cloud. Whether it’s multimedia information or chats or anything else, a backup saves everything. Thus, backups can take up a lot of space. Difference between Snapshots and Backups First and foremost, Snapshots can be considered a part of backups, as it too saves vital information of the Virtual Machine, just not as comprehensively as backups. Unlike Snapshots, Backups can be scheduled to happen automatically; within a week or 48 hours or even daily. However unlike Backups that can be scheduled only once a day, you take take as many snapshots during a day. As snapshots aren’t as comprehensive as backups, it’s easier to roll back to the features saved on snapshots than that of a backup. As Backups are more comprehensive, one can count on restoring an entire virtual machine’s characteristics just using backup. That luxury isn’t available with snapshots. Snapshots depend upon parent/base VM disks and in some cases, previous snapshots to fully restore the data. 1 snapshot in itself is not capable of doing so; but 1 backup is. Thus, we can conclude that both backups and snapshots are good ways of preserving data in times of upgrades and formatting. However, Backups are independent and can readily do the task. Snapshots on the other hand are dependent on parent disks and thus, may not be able to finish the task. While Snapshots are faster yet dependent, Backups are a time consuming yet comprehensive process. Source:https://www.htshosting.org/knowledge-base/technology/131/what-are-the- differences-between-snapshots-and-backup-in-virtual-machines