Administering volume snapshots 331

Creating instant snapshots

synchronization was already in progress on the snapshot, this operation may result in large portions of the snapshot having to be resynchronized. See Refreshing an instant snapshot” on page 337 for details.

Reattach some or all of the plexes of the snapshot volume with the original volume. See Reattaching an instant snapshot” on page 338 for details.

Restore the contents of the original volume from the snapshot volume. You can choose whether none, a subset, or all of the plexes of the snapshot volume are returned to the original volume as a result of the operation. See Restoring a volume from an instant snapshot” on page 340 for details.

Dissociate the snapshot volume entirely from the original volume. This may be useful if you want to use the copy for other purposes such as testing or report generation. If desired, you can delete the dissociated volume. See Dissociating an instant snapshot” on page 340 for details.

If the snapshot is part of a snapshot hierarchy, you can also choose to split this hierarchy from its parent volumes. See Splitting an instant snapshot hierarchy” on page 341 for details.

Creating and managing linked break-off snapshot volumes

Note: Break-off snapshots are suitable for write-intensive volumes, such as database redo logs.

For linked break-off snapshots, you must prepare a volume that is to be used as the snapshot volume. This must be the same size as the volume for which the snapshot is being created, and it must also have the same region size. See Creating a volume for use as a full-sized instant or linked break-off snapshot” on page 323 for details.

The attributes for a snapshot are specified as a tuple to the vxsnap make command. This command accepts multiple tuples. One tuple is required for each snapshot that is being created. Each element of a tuple is separated from the next by a slash character (/). Tuples are separated by white space.

To create and manage a linked break-off snapshot

1Use the following command to link the prepared snapshot volume, snapvol, to the data volume:

# vxsnap [-g diskgroup] [-b] addmir volume mirvol=snapvol \