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Is it possible to take a snapshot of a volume, destroy the volume, then restore it from the snapshot?

Posted on September 28, 2019

With a droplet, I know I can do the following if I’m not going to use the droplet for a long time:

  • take a snapshot of the droplet
  • destroy the droplet but keep the snapshot, for a fraction of the price per month compared to keeping the droplet itself “alive”
  • later restore the droplet from the snapshot

Can I do the same with a VOLUME? That is:

  • is it possible to take snapshots of a volume at all?
  • is it possible to keep a snapshot after the volume from which I took it is destroyed?
  • is the price per month of keeping a snapshot much lower than the price of keeping the volume active? (otherwise the whole thing wouldn’t make sense)
  • is it possible to restore a volume from a snapshot? Well I guess if all the above are yes, then this must be a yes too because what would be a snapshot for if you couldn’t restore a volume from it, right? But is it possible after having destroyed the original volume and kept only the snapshot?


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The answer is yes to all of your questions, you can also find a high level brief overview here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/images/snapshots/how-to/snapshot-volumes/

As well as how to create a new volume from a snapshot here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/images/snapshots/how-to/create-volumes/

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