Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI/aSV)

Sangfor HCI and aSV provide a unified infrastructure combining compute, storage, networking, and built-in security to simplify deployment, operations, and services.
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6.11.1R1
Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI/aSV) {{ breadTitle }} User Manual Virtual Machine Configuration Guidance Virtual Machine Management Manage Snapshot Policies
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Manage Snapshot Policies

{{ $t('productDocDetail.updateTime') }}: 2026-01-05
Manage Snapshot Policies

Description

You can configure a scheduled snapshot policy to take snapshots for VMs by hour, day, or week. You can further set snapshot retention options to automatically delete snapshots to release storage space.

With a snapshot policy, you can achieve regular protection of your VM. In the event of a logical error, such as a virus infection, you can recover your VM from a snapshot to reduce losses.

Precautions

  1. Snapshot policies are either in manual or smart (default) mode. Before switching the mode, you need to delete all snapshot policies in the current mode.
  2. Continuously taking storage-based snapshots can reduce VM performance. Snapshots taken earlier than the specified period are merged to save storage space. The system retains the latest 5–7 snapshots.
  3. If a selected VM or consistency group has already been added to a snapshot policy, it will be removed from the policy and added to the current one.
  4. The daily number of snapshots that can be taken based on a snapshot policy is limited as follows:

• Hybrid datastore: vm_num = [0.6 × (host_num - 3) × 4 + 12] × (capacity per SSD × 0.5 × number of SSDs/480 GB). Note: If storage capacities are heterogeneous, the smallest capacity is used for calculation.

• All-flash datastore: 2,048

Steps

  1. Go to Reliability > Snapshots > Snapshot Policy.

  1. Specify the snapshot policy mode.

• Manual mode: You can specify the time or interval for taking snapshots on a weekly or daily basis.

• Smart mode: A snapshot taking threshold is automatically estimated to avoid compromising the business processing of the VM. Snapshots can be taken on a weekly or daily basis.

To switch the mode, click Switch to Smart Mode on the Snapshot Policy tab.

  1. Click New Snapshot Policy and select the target VM or consistency group.

  1. Set the snapshot taking schedule based on your requirements.

• In manual mode, you can specify whether to take snapshots by week, day, or hour, set the snapshot retention options to save storage space, and enable Quiesce Guest File System as required.

• In smart mode, you can specify whether to take snapshots automatically by week or day.

  1. Configure basic information and confirm it. The snapshot policy is created successfully.

  1. To modify the storage-based snapshot policy, click Advanced on the Snapshot Policy tab.

• Policy Mode: Select Manual Mode or Smart Mode.

• Residual Snapshot File Cleanup: By default, Realtime is selected. You can change the value to Delayed as required. However, delayed cleanup may prevent the storage space from being released promptly through snapshot deletion when the space is insufficient.

Realtime: Residual snapshot files will be cleared immediately after snapshots are deleted, which can promptly release storage space.

Delayed: Residual snapshot files will be cleared at a specified time period after snapshots are deleted, to ensure business performance, especially during peak hours.

• Usage Threshold: Snapshots will not be taken as scheduled upon the reach of a threshold.