The COMPLETE BTRFS Snapshot Guide

[@mattiesmusic]

Now this is quality content, another reason why I like SpaceRex so much. Straight to the point, very clear and complete explenation, and also says why. In the mids of all of those "pretend" youtubers that pretend to know something, it's good to know there's at least one channel with true quality content. Even if I already know what you're saying, it's still ever so fascinating to watch your videos, never know when I might something new. So in short: A very big thanks for your awesome videos

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks man! Really means a lot

[@raylopez99]

SpaceRex is the best salesman that Synology has, and I bet probably he's not even paid (even if he is, he's worth it).

[@markboyd934]

@Matties Music - I was just about to comment exactly what you said above....could not agree with you more. SpaceRex is one of my go-to channels. Love the topics that he covers. Really enjoyed the 2 part series on "Synology for Photographers".

[@dennispater8833]

​@@raylopez99 he is the reason why i choose Synology as my nas 😂

[@raylopez99]

@@dennispater8833 True. But just today, I had a Synology issue that maybe our host can do a video on: I installed a "Wi-Fi mesh repeater" and now my NAS is not being recognized by the "find the NAS on your home intranet' link that you type into your browser. I think it's because of the mesh repeater. I have to play around with it and see if I can get it back. No worries, it's probably a minor workaround.

[@Supermanohman]

My man. Everybody has been telling me to make snapshots but I always thought it was some technical thing I would never need like so many things I've come across with my Synology. Your first 2 minutes talking about it made me realize I need to have them so I just set them up the same way you did. I still don't 100% understand them but at least I have them if something bad happens and someone asks me "Do you have snapshots?" I can say yes. Thanks my man!

[@heckyes]

Best description on KZbin of what BTRFS, why it's useful, it's downsides, and how it works at a high level.

[@DavidDWalton]

Hi Spacerex! I’m a new subscriber and fan. I’ve only had my DS920+ for a few days, but it’s already up and running perfectly, largely thanks to your content. There’s so few people on KZbin making Synology content on this level. Thank you for what you do!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Awesome, thank you!

[@brianhansen6906]

Nice Choice on the NAS. I have the same and you'll be very happy with it. Spacerex is an excellent resource. NAScompares is another. the two actually did a video together recently which was quite awesome.

[@jsully007]

you are like a breath of fresh air on youtube. great information communicated clearly without fluff or endless begging and "reminders" to like/subscribe/click bells/blah blah blah. I VERY rarely do any of those things for anyone, I did here though. I'm currently switching from a Drobo to a Synology and your videos have been extremely useful explaining all the new things at my disposal. thank you.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hey thanks man! Glad you like the channel!

[@wimsijstermans5178]

I own Synology gear for many years with BTRFS enabled and actually never thought about this. Thank you so much for your great video! Not to mention your other great contributions. Gives me a lot more value out of the NAS. Thank you so much!

[@linochacon266]

Thanks spacerex for this great video. I found this video to be one of the best I have ever seen in your channel. Great content, proper pauses within, practical examples, the ins and out of the content etc. thanks again I really appreciate your time for putting this video together.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Hey thanks! I felt like it was as well! I have felt like they have been getting a good bit better recently

[@Vandroiy78]

Thank you so much for your videos which have helped me a lot. :-)

[@SpaceRexWill]

Happy to help man!

[@pietschreuder5047]

Your previous video's made me migrate to BTRFS and set the Synology up as You suggested. I know now that I am fully covered: Snapshots for most files, daily incremental backup of the whole system and a cloud storage for my most important files. When from home, I can remotely log in to the Synology, but I have also access to the cloud system. No sweat! BTW, snapshot reminds me of the old Salvage command on Novell Netware. That function saved the day for me many times in the old days! Thanks for your great video's!

[@m0rthaus]

Great presentation. For clarification, when you have to "go to IT to restore a backup of a file", if that file is anything older than a week or two, they are typically going to an offsite backup - usually a data tape - and restoring from that. So when they sigh and say that the restore will take 12 hours or 1 day, its not laziness or disorganization. They literally have to determine which tape they need from the backup set, call or email the tape warehouse company and arrange return of the tape, wait for delivery, insert tape, sometimes perform a read command which indexes the tape data before they can check what they can restore from it, then restore the data to a temp folder which can take an hour or so depending on where the data is on the tape physically, then put it somewhere the user can access. All the while they also have to update the ticket and manage update queries from the user who may be anxious for their file(s). Also, this is not unusual at all - almost all medium to large businesses have offsite backups on a specific retention period, and many of them still use tape as it is very high capacity and quite quick to backup a lot of data (LTO tapes are up to 18TB each currently). TL;DR: don't get too frustrated at the IT team when they're restoring a lost file and it takes longer than you expect, it is often a laborious process for them, and often not possible for them to speed up significantly as much of the time is waiting for the delivery or waiting for the restore process.

[@StanimirTodorov]

Thanks!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks!

[@kb4]

Great tutorials for Synology. I've been a Synology Partner for many years and I don't know why I haven't found your videos before. Great information!

[@ademkollari8992]

I think I finally may have started to understand snapshots. I'll give em a try. Running 920+ I acquired recently. Thank you!

[@mikereadinguk2879]

Excellent. So informative , easy to understand and useful. Keep up the good work.

[@rapacious_rapscallion]

Thank you for this! You clarified a few things I've always wondered about when it comes to BTRFS snapshots.

[@ashnaura]

You are a lifesaver... Watched all your other videos on Synology. Subscribed and recommending to others as well. Please keep up the good work. Thank you so much.

[@Jeff_Seely]

Oh yes BTRFS snaps have really saved my butt. Great demo and explanation!

[@karlfoley]

Many thanks for the useful content, I now have this setup on my shares. :) I already was using HyperBackup to backup to BackBlaze, but this lets me do local recovery without having to pull stuff back from my online backup.

[@SgtSOB]

Thanks SpaceRex!!! If I use Snapshots can I turn off file versioning in Synology Drive? Thanks!

[@firewire3212]

Another excellent video. I had been using versioning within the Drive Admin Console but Snapshot is a no brainer. Thanks again Spacerex!

[@justinjones9255]

The way you described why making SS visible is beneficial sounds like when using Time Machine to go back to the TM backups on a Mac and looking for a file that, for example, you may have deleted and you want to retrieve it. All of course without the snazzy Mac graphical interface. Yes?

[@tarcisio_menezes]

So informative and useful! Even for people like me that don't use Synology. I loved the analogy between snapshot and the trash bin when the file is deleted. That's quality content! Thank you so much! Subscribed!

[@20centurymodern]

Incredibly clear and descriptive, keep up the wonderful videos!

[@waterbourne9282]

Really appreciate your videos, really helped my set up and refine my DS720+.

[@truckturner3175]

Thank you very much for your easily to follow explanations! Helped me a lot already!

[@brianhansen6906]

Excellent content as usual. Thankyou for the clear concise explanations.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks man!

[@droneforfun5384]

Go for huge amount of drives and set snapshots to maximum, YOLO. Thanks for good video Will.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Exactly lol

[@EuroPC4711]

HinSpaceRex, first of all, I’d like to thank you for your videos. For business you said taking snapshots every four hours or so. It only with fast disks and a fast NAS. I j+have now a 16 21plus with 3x8 TB iron wolf as raid5. The amount of users is quite low, three Synology Drive Users.

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

Incredibly helpful video!How does this relate / compare to the file versioning in Synology Drive?

[@Bluecoat64738]

Great video! You really explained all important about snapshots! Thanks a lot!

[@rickpoeling6831]

Thank you for making this video. It was extremely helpful.

[@andywilson8276]

Nice one mate. Super helpful. Clawed back 5TB

[@wrehtube]

What a great introduction to snapshot. Thanks for that !!

[@daylightSWW]

First I have to thank you for your amazing videos. Thanks to them I am waiting for my Nas to arrive. I'm elderly (almost 70) and I just can't geek out on my own like I used to be able to. Question: Can an administrator account browse an snapshot of an encrypted folder or do they have to clone it also?

[@drheili]

Thank you for all your excellent Synology vids. I'm new to NAS on my home network and need it primarily for photo storage. I just installed a NS920+. Your videos have gotten me up to speed quickly with which apps to install and how to configure them. Thanks again and keep up the great work. Quick question, any suggestions for a good duplicate file finder. I know I have many duplicate images and would like to clean them up.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Check out storage analyzer, will find dupes very well. You do have to manually go through them, but you always should manually go through dupes

[@DavidM2002]

I can't see where you can create a snapshot of an entire volume on the Synology NAS. Recently, QNAP rolled out an app update that was badly flawed but it was not possible to go back to the old version of the app. So, what some users did, who had snapshots of their entire volume, was to roll back the volume from those snapshots.

[@pgotze]

Generally i use snapshots locally + snapshots replication to offsite in case on remote system i like to see it as it is on original NAS. I combine it with HyperBackup in cases, when i want to have backed up data more secured (encrypted, compressed and via password encapsulated) on remote backup NAS. Both have advantages / disadvantages. In some situations, snapshot versions take more disc space of backup, then hyperbackup versions.

[@SpaceRexWill]

For me I only use snapshot replication when I want someone to be able to recover instantly, like if the onsite NAS crashed they would drive offsite, pickup the backup and bring it to the office. For any other case I use hyperbackup as it gives you compression, clear versioning, and just overall ability to recover a bit better in case of a full blown disaster

[@jennifermedia6288]

Thanks Will. .Excellent informative video again.

[@DrJosephSweeney]

Thank you for this tutorial! Very helpful!

[@childhoodbusiness5057]

Hi SpaceRex, I just found your videos on Synology and I am stunned! You provide so much valuable information and do it in such a humble way. Thanks for your work! Regrading snapshots: I would have loved to hear a word about "recycle bin" on a Synology vs. Snapshots ... Shall I get rid of the bins? Or are they useful as an hourly snapshot might miss a new file on the NAS that got deleted before a snapshot is taken? And will the bin also get snapshooted?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks man! Really glad you like the channel! For me I generally disable recycling bins to make it simple. The one use they can have is the imitate delete, then regret. So you can still have one, but just have it emptied every single night. The bin will be snapshotted

[@edcoppen]

@spacerex. I use Cloud Sync to pull my OneDrive data to a shared folder on a NAS. Is it better to use snapshot replication to protect this data, or to use Active Backup for Microsoft 365 please?

[@a_mouse6858]

How do DSM snapshots interact with regular file versioning? If you are taking regular snapshots of an entire shared folder, does it make sense to turn off retention policies at the file level?

[@PantherFinance]

Theoretically yes. Currently, I am searching for answer to this question too, but since I see no disadvantage or risk there I will turn it off. Maybe this can help somehow after 10 months haha

[@dirkziegler9580]

Currently I am only using HyperBackup (backing up on Remote-NAS locally on another place as my home-NAS) to backup my NAS-data. I have enabled backup rotation there keeping maximum of 60 versions. When I configure and use SNAPSHOTS, is it still necessary to make use of backup rotation?

[@davidmiko8954]

Hi SpaceRex, thanks for this overview. very useful! I am wondering if this is effectively the same thing as versioning in Drive Share Sync? And does it duplicate the data if you have both running? We have two separate offices which are synced over Drive ShareSync. Both units are identical and both sides worked on by separate teams simultaneously. It works mostly well but we noticed one of the units has a lot more of the data used up (by several terrabytes). We were reducing the number of versions in Drive share sync to try to reduce the data hogging but I am now wondering if the space is not actually released that way?

[@michaelrobinson9643]

Where long term snapshot can help may be if you are absent for extended periods and you want to have a snapshot present that won't be overwritten in absence. This would be useful for example if you were hit with crypto while away... and your NAS diligently replaced all snapshots with ones representing your encrypted data. Osentisbly your backup would cover this... but it is a scenario where a longer hold may be good. Rate of data change would be a factor in this. I use a long hold for things like my media - pictures, music etc where I'm not deleting just occasionally adding.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Yeah, thats kinda what I try to feel out with a client is "how long before you notice this" and "how much storage is this goign to take if I leave it for 2 months"

[@michaelrobinson9643]

@@SpaceRexWill I'm trying to get my hed around how to structure a relatively low number of snapshots to keep the reserved space small, yet still have one that is retained for 6 weeks. Daily, a weekly, then 1 at 6 weeks.

[@dollhausenx]

You should probably start with the space issue by showing how to calculate size to make an informed decision for creating, how often and how many.

[@thekitchenmakeovershop1504]

Thanks for a great explanation of snapshot. Do you have a tutorial on snapshot of homes? If making the snapshots visible, does this means that all users will have access to the snapshots of the files in homes and will be able to see other user's homes?

[@johnplanetz]

Very well explained, thanks!

[@nkish]

Would Snapshots still be useful if the I’m primarily using the NAS as storage for Plex Media Server (so mostly a lot of large video files that don’t change)? If so, what is the purpose of a snapshot of these types of files? The files themselves wouldn’t change, so no need to save or recall previous versions of a file.

[@derekaxtell5397]

I keep all my snapshots for major disaster recovery. With Snapshots visible i can see them in File Explorer. If there are certain folders I do not want within part of these snapshots, can I simply remove read only permissions and delete folders within that snapshot then recreate as read only?

[@turisma_music]

Great video! But does it makes sense to use Synology Snapshots if I already use Timemachine on my macOS with the Synology NAS?

[@MrMartin0815]

Do I need to consider anything regarding snapshots when backing up entire directories with visible #Snapshot-Folders externally using Hyper Backup? I don't want the snapshot files to be backed up additionally!

[@aodhfin]

I did an initial Snapshot which included the homes folder. However, the #snapshot folder appears in the homes folder but not in the individual's home folder. This means an individual user can not browse the snapshots of their home folder but only shared folders. Is there a workaround for this so the individual user can see their own home folder snapshots?

[@alienfoo9528]

Hi Spacerex, i want to setup the snapshot replication but not sure if this is workable. Need your professional advice. i have 3 NAS. Can you let me know which scenario is workable for snapshot replication? 1. Create a task for Primary NAS>Replicate To>NAS A. Then create a task for NAS A>Replicate To>NAS B 2. Create a task for Primary NAS>Replicate To>NAS A & also >Replicate To>NAS B

[@terorvlad]

2000+$ for what's essentially a big external hard drive was absolutely laughable at first glance. But with all these amazing features it is absolutely crazy NOT to have at least one NAS in a business nowadays. I did not think I would come to love this expensive box of hard drives, but it truly makes life so easy when dealing with tens of TB of data.

[@frankboyer1490]

Love your videos! Do you have a link for where you got that shirt?

[@osbornecropfield4058]

Great video - thanks. Very useful an informative. Appreciate it.

[@mistertwo6113]

So at 21:10 you went from Snapshot list to mumble, mumble and now I'm lost. I have Snapshots visible, but I still have no idea where you jumped to.

[@dalan81]

Just got my 920+ and am finding your channel very helpful as a microbusiness owner and someone who plans on using the NAS for multiple tasks. Your overview of snapshots makes lots of sense, as I was trying to figure out the backup options (full, incremental, etc.) and realize now that snapshots play an important role there as well. So, if I have setup retention policy in ActiveBackup do I also need to turn on snapshots in Snapshot Replication for ActiveBackup, or does ActiveBackup already use them automatically? (given that I don't see an option for incremental backup).

[@ManishKumar-pu2oo]

Hi SpaceRex, is it possible to create scheduled snapshots of PC's, android devices, IOS devices, MAC on Synology NAS ?? please reply ....

[@chadcordero1618]

Thanks for the video. I set up btrfs when setting up my nas and didn't know how to set up snapshots. I have a nube question for anyone reading this. Is there any reason to make snapshots visible on the homes folder? I found that the #snapshot folder is only visible in the root (homes) folder and there is not #snapshot folder in the user's home folder.

[@paco8080]

Amazing video! Thanks a lot!

[@zac2641]

Thanks for the informative video. If I have a shared folder dedicated to mac time machine backups, would you recommend protecting it with btrfs snapshots? Or would that be overkill?

[@ahmedaborady7883]

I know its not very doable from file system perspective, but i wish i can enable snapshots on a subfolder I have a shared folder of around 7TB with only a few critical subfolders inside of which i would love to have snapshots for but for that i have to replicate 7TB of data that wont change much actually

[@ccbphoto]

Thanks Will!

[@gearboxworks]

Thanks for this video, lots of great info. After owning a DS1817+ since new for file storage but for what I am now calling my Homelab - thanks to learning the name from all the KZbinrs - I am finally setting up snapshots. But one thing that is confusing me; replication vs. snapshots. I did not realize I could set up a snapshot schedule in the snapshots section and so set up snapshots in the replication section. That duplicated all my shares with a "-1" suffix, but also created snapshots for both shares and their duplicates, or so it would appear. Now I don't know what I should do regarding how to configure them. Have you created a video about the differences? If not, I think that could be a great topic for you to cover. Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply.

[@aayush_dutt]

@SpaceRexWill should I enable snapshot schedule in my docker volume (which may have those frequent file changes). If yes what rules do you recommend?

[@SpaceRexWill]

You should still! Really useful for if you mess something up. Biggest thing will just be setting appropriate retention policy’s

[@malm1231]

great vid thanks -would editing ID3 tags on an mp3 file be considered a change by this program? or play count if the file has been read? - should i disable recycle bin if using this feature? do you think it would cause issues with other recycle bins of sync applications? (eg resilio sync's "SYNC" folder)

[@SpaceRexWill]

So this system does not really care about files. All it cares about is the underlying data. In your case where you edited 1KB of meta data, of a 50 MB file, all BTRFS sees is a change to the 1KB of data. Meaning that the previous version of that file is simply different by 1 KB, so the snapshot “costs” 1 KB As for a recycling bin I would leave it on, but empty it every night. It’s nice to be able to grab the file as it was just before it was deleted

[@malm1231]

@@SpaceRexWill you are an absolute champ thank you :)

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

If users only have access to their own home folder, can they not access #snapshot? If the users are granted access to the shared homes folder there #snapshot is, then couldn’t they also at least view other users’ home directories, which seems problematic?

[@gogoldgoal]

I have a question, I activated snapshot function and disable Access time, I wait for the first snapshot, then changed some files, and wait for the second snapshots. But in the second snapshots folder, i still see all the files including those not been touched, is that normal? I thought only the changed files will appear in the cooresponding snapshot folder.

[@SpaceRexWill]

So it will show you all of the files. It’s not actually duplicating files or anything like that. Just kinda like a history

[@gogoldgoal]

@@SpaceRexWill Are these snapshots "data" also stored in raid or they being part of system files?

[@TWARDOWSKY.]

are synology snapshot protect from ransomware attacked Direkt to Synology OS or SMB folder connected to attacked PC ? Where are the ?Snapshot storage?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Snapshots protect against any ransomeware that does not get root access to the NAS as only root users can delete snapshots

[@danimoosakhan]

Can you do video on ssd caching? I think it's worth it with M.2 NVMe drive if your Synology supports it.

[@rustyrob]

Hi, can I use snaphots on an encryped folder, thanks.

[@durrer90]

Thank you so much, you are amazing!

[@stefanlindstrom7212]

Great information thank you so much !!

[@pilotbum]

I have two Synology NAS's running BTRFS in two locations. Presently I have them Syncing using ShareSync and each device backs up to the other every other day using HyperBackup. I am not presently using Snapshot replication. In my setup, given the two different locations, would I be better off setting up Snapshot Replication locally on each device or across to the opposite device?

[@SpaceRexWill]

If you already have share sync running you should use hyper backup

[@pilotbum]

@@SpaceRexWill I currently have both of those running (ShareSync & Hyper Backup). With the two of those running should I not bother Snapshot Replication (which is not running)? Or if I should use Snapshot Replication, should I run it to replicate on the local device or the opposite device?

[@camerachris]

Would there be a reason that a particular folder would not be made available in the snapshot setup list? My main "Home" folder isn't there. There is a "Homes" folder but not my main home one that is where the majority of my stored content resides.

[@SpaceRexWill]

the home folder is within Homes so if you snapshot homes you can recover your home folder

[@camerachris]

@@SpaceRexWill , thank you kindly

[@brandonelliotphotography]

Looking to upgrade NAS to take advantage of BTRFS -- which would you recommend, 1522+ or is it worth spending $200 more for the 1621+?

[@07GoldWinger]

I did not understand your Time Machine schedule policy. Are you saying schedule backup on one day of the week only (ex. Monday) with the retention only set to latest for the week for 1 week?

[@SpaceRexWill]

since time machine already has versioning I would run time machine daily, then only have snapshots weekly. This way you have one 'just in case' something happens, but it doesn't take up tons of space

[@thesmuuuuggh]

Fantastic video! thanks.

[@david243121]

Awesome info! Thanks

[@davidshropshire793]

Great tutorials SpaceRex! Do I understand correctly that if all my NAS shared folders take up 4 TB, then doing Snapshots for them will require an additional 4 TB on the NAS? Another question: Is there a reason or a way to run Snapshots on a Windows PC?

[@SpaceRexWill]

That is incorrect! The snapshots do not take up space unless you delete files. As for windows i am not sure, you may be able to use shadow copies but they may be editable. You can always use active backup for business

[@davidshropshire793]

@@SpaceRexWill Thanks for the clarification. I assumed it was taking up space, because the properties of a snapshot in the #snapshot folder within the shared folder was the exact same size as data in the shared folder.

[@Maverick7r]

Thank you!! I was scanning the comments trying to figure out what to do. I'm just setting up my NAS and haven't migrated my data over yet, (getting everything setup first). I was trying to figure out if I should setup Snapshots before or after I copy all my data over to the NAS. From this response it sounds like it doesn't matter since it only takes a snapshot of files that are deleted or modified so I can go ahead and setup Snapshots and then copy my data over. I was worried it would try and make a snapshot of everything I was putting on my device which would double the space needed... hopefully I've got all that correct. 🙂

[@robwebb2052]

Great content! How do these Snapshots interact with Synology Drive? Lets say I have two NASs (NASi?) both running BTRFS and Synology Drive is syncing folders between them. The snapshots of those folders are completely independent, correct? I can put a file in a shared folder, it will get synced to the other shared folder. If both are doing snapshots, that file will then be in each folder's independent snapshots. I can then delete the file from one of them, Synology Drive will delete it from the other, but it will be in the snapshots on both sides?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Yes they will!

[@96indashade]

Would making the snapshot folder visible make your snapshots vulnerable to hackers (since they can see that you're using snapshots)?

[@SpaceRexWill]

But they can’t do anything about them

[@stephanecouvreur1377]

I messed up my Plex library by activating Snapshot on the Movies folder (no replication), because Plex scanned the snapshot folder. Now, the Plex library shows broken associations, duplicate movies with missing files everywhere. I haven't been able to recover the original Plex library, because its snapshot was made after the Movies folder had been processed by snapshot. How I solved the problem: - I made snapshots invisible in the movie folders which are scanned by Plex. - I rescanned all folders with Plex, optimized the database and cleaned the bundles, stopped & restarted Plex and everything seems to be back to normal.

[@rexhoss]

I just started using snapshot replication on your advice. I'm seeing red minus signs on some of the folders I have snapshots enabled on. I can't figure out what the minus signs on the snapshot icon means? Any ideas?

[@SpaceRexWill]

That just means they are read only!

[@rexhoss]

@SpaceRex oh, interesting. It seems to be on some, but not all of the snapshot files in various folders I set up for snapshots but I thought I set them all the same

[@John-eq8cu]

Ok, I've been thinking I should learn about BTRFS, as I've had it for years, but never understood about it. Now I'm convinced. So it's like you get version-control like Subversion at the file-system level, which like you say, is awesome. But one thing you didn't talk about is "binary files". As you know, it's easy to 'diff' a text file, but binaries don't diff, because they are random, ie incompressible. So I'm guessing that BTRFS handles binaries like subversion does: makes a new copy for each new revision. Now my videos won't change, but what about fast-changing binary files, such as a swapfile? I just want to avoid a situation where there is a runaway growth in storage usage. Do binaries matter in BTRFS, and should I have a strategy of building my volumes in a way that separates out these fast-changing binary files into a separate share with a different retention policy?

[@SpaceRexWill]

So while SVN and BTRFS both have versioning they got about them in very different manors. BTRFS is the actual underlying file system, and its using what's called Copy On Write (COW) to do its "diff", but it actually never has to diff a file, the files actually are diffing themselves. Every time you change a file, you would need to run a diff. But you change is literally the diff between the old file and the new. So the way that BTRFS works (in a pretty basic simplification) is every time you save a change to a file, it does not delete the old part of the data and save the change to that location, instead it just saves the change in a new location, and points back to it. And that is your diff. As a side note: BTRFS is the file system and is actual file agnostic. To BTRFS ALL data is binary files. It does not try to read text or anything

[@justinknash]

When enabling snapshots, do they also get sent with HyperBackup (e.g. into S3)? I don't want them to if possible.

[@SpaceRexWill]

No they do not

[@camc702]

Great video!

[@TheJoaolyraaraujo]

Thanks. Can you follow up with snapshot replication with VPN on Unifi.

[@mwa1252]

Wondering why you skipped over the "First run time" and "Last run time" in the snapshot schedule window. Are these two options used to tell snapshot what time of day to run? (or not to run). I setup snapshot for the first time and my Synology is taking snapshots all night long.

[@SpaceRexWill]

So the beauty of snapshots are those ones at night are not going to have any changes, so they will take up no size

[@mwa1252]

@@SpaceRexWill Ahhh... Good point! Thank You!

[@mwa1252]

@@SpaceRexWill It's a little confusing at first. If you check the properties of individual snapshots, they each read as the total folder size. And if I check the properties from Windows, my 90GB shared folder registers as several terabytes.

[@digitalman2112]

Was just thinking, how do snapshots protect against ransomware if they're just a delta? Doesn't it still need the original data to create the files?

[@SpaceRexWill]

So the entire filesystem (not just the snapshots) is delta. (Copy on Write) Snapshots allow you to go back to previous versions of files, meaning if someone delete or modifies (encrypts) a file, you can go back to how it was x days ago. The snapshots are read only so they cannot be modified over SMB

[@stevehamill]

Hi Spacerex, I listened with interest to your video about taking snapshots which I set up on my own NAS. I have two folders on my NAS, one called "Homes" and another called "Public". I set up snapshots on both of these folders. After several snapshots were taken, I thought I should test the recovery process. I could recover files from the "Public" folder, but not from the "Homes" folder. On the "Homes" folder, the recovery option was greyed out. Thinking I had not set things up correctly or I had a problem, I contacted Synology support and asked for advice. While DSM allows snapshots to be set up for the "Homes" folder, to my surprise, Synology told me that it is not possible to recover snapshots from the "Homes" folder. It said that it would pass my request to the development team as a feature enhancement request. I see from your video that you have snapshots running on your "Homes" folder, have you ever tried to recover a file from that folder using a snapshot, if so, did it work for you.

[@SpaceRexWill]

So homes is a special folder. Due to it being the user home folder multiple other services use it, so you can’t straight recover it. Instead you clone with a new name / browse the snapshots. And copy the files back you need to recover

[@stevehamill]

Hi SpaceRex, Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly, it is much appreciated. When I bought my Synology NAS, I set up the user folders in the "Homes" folder, I suspect a lof of people do that. From what I know now, it sounds like this was not a good thing to do. Is it better to create separate user folders that are not within the "Homes" folder? If I change things around like this, are there an disadvantages of having the user folders completely separate to the Homes folder?

[@GunmanBricks]

thanks a lot for your information... amazing

[@zedzegerman]

hey, but a ransomware can encrypt even the snapshots folder, isn't it so ? what do you do then ?

[@SpaceRexWill]

They can’t. Snapshots are read only

[@DaystromDataConcepts]

I am debating whether to enable snapshots in my scenario. My NAS is essentially a write once, read many (WORM) unit, in that I rip DVD's and BD's and store them on the NAS ... and that's it. So, with that use case in mind, is it still worth me enabling snapshots at all? BTW, I do have full external backups of all this data and update that backup after every five or ten newly added rips, which could translate to a new backup every couple of months or so.

[@SpaceRexWill]

You absolutely should snapshot! The beauty of snapshots is if nothing changes, they take up no space. They will just be a safeguard in case a computer gets a virus

[@DaystromDataConcepts]

@@SpaceRexWill I hear you, but should my NAS become encrypted via ransom ware or all the files corrupted from a virous, then the snapshot will fill my volume and not be able to snapshot everything changed as I have currently less space left than is used, so I'd have to resort to a wipe and restore, or am I missing something?

[@SpaceRexWill]

In that case the virus will get an error when your volume is full. After that you can just restore the shared folder to a clean snapshot, and boom, in 2 seconds you have your volume back up and running

[@DaystromDataConcepts]

@@SpaceRexWill Excellent point! I had not considered that. Thank you so much for settling this in my mind, snapshots it is! :)

[@notreallyme425]

I run snapshots on all my shares, but I also have recycle bins on some of them too. I run a daily task to empty all recycle bins for any files greater than 30 days. If I run multiple snapshots daily, is there any reason not to empty my recycle bins of any files older than 2 days? (I like having the recycle bins in case I delete something accidentally that was new and was never captured by a snapshot). I assume BTRFS deduplicates files that are in the snapshot and the recycle bin, correct?

[@SpaceRexWill]

For me I only normally have the recycling bin empty everything each night. That way if you delete something you can quickly grab it. But if it’s been a few days you can just go to the snapshot

[@iamnotapoet]

Thanks, as always for the FANTASTIC video[s]. And here is a quick and dumb question. I THINK I know the answer, but want. to triple check. Are there any RULES about deleting individual snapshots? Are there any DEPENDECIES? Meaning, can you ARBITRARILY delete any random snapshots you like? I can't think of a reason you would need to... But let's say you have 200 snapshots and you want to RANDOMLY delete 70 of them.. Contigious ones, discontinuous ones etc [10 recent snapshots, 30 very old ones, a few in the middle etc.. Is that allowed? Or certain snapshots NOT allowed to be deleted. Thanks for your words of wisdom. - Eric ZORK Alan & Sweetie [ Professional Poets & Bed 🛏 & Beer🍺 Vloggers ]

[@IMBlakeley]

Do I understand right encrypted folder snapshots are not visible but you could recover the whole folder somehow?

[@SpaceRexWill]

They are not as easily visible. But what you can do is “clone with new name” to see the encrypted shared folders snapshot. It’s just slower

[@wesc6755]

That's the easy case. Taking snapshots of /Homes is weird. Users won't have access to /Homes/#snapshot so they can't self-admin the files they will most often need to recover. Docs say that (on WIndows) the Previous Version tab on file properties can be used, but I've never seen anything appear there on any machine on the network. If there's a solution where users can self-admin their Home folder, please let me know.

[@SpaceRexWill]

Yeah, because of the way home folders work (using sambas remapping) it is a bit odd. Best case might be to use drive versions? Then users could self administer