Question

do snapshots and backups use droplet space?

Posted on August 31, 2023
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Asked by 8d745ad1d87748f7aaa8cdab273c89

i was wondering if backups and snapshots use droplet storage space, and when the snapshot is in a volume it uses volume space?

can’t i move a backup to a volume?

do volumes lost its data when detached?

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• September 1, 2023

Accepted Answer

Hi there,

I’ll try to cover all of your questons in order:

Do snapshots and backups use Droplet space?
- No, snapshots and backups do not use the storage space of the Droplet itself. Instead, they are stored separately on DigitalOcean’s infrastructure and you are billed for their storage separately from your Droplet.
When the snapshot is in a volume, does it use volume space?
- When you take a snapshot of a volume, the snapshot does not use the space on that volume. Like Droplet snapshots, volume snapshots are stored separately on DigitalOcean’s infrastructure, and you are billed separately for them.
Can I move a backup to a volume?
- Backups in DigitalOcean are automatically managed and you don’t have direct file-level access to them. If you want to manually “backup” a Droplet’s data to a volume, you’d have to do so by mounting the volume to the Droplet and then copying the data over. This is different from the automated backup service, which provides a point-in-time snapshot of the Droplet. If you’ve taken a manual snapshot of a Droplet and want it in a volume, you’d need to create a new Droplet from the snapshot, then mount a volume and copy the data to the volume.
Do volumes lose their data when detached?
- No, volumes retain their data when detached from a Droplet. You can attach, detach, and reattach a volume to different Droplets without losing the data stored on the volume. The data remains persistent until the volume is deleted.