From y experience with KVM, which is what DO is using, in order to create a snapshot you have to suspend the instance. The server is off line while the snapshot is taking place and the is turned back on when it is done.

It is shutdown during the entire snapshot duration process which is a couple of minutes and depends on the size of your virtual server and how much content was added to it.

okay so on that note too...what about restoring? How long do they usually take? I know it would depend on how big the snapshot is. But say i have a basic lamp stack with like a gig of files on it. How quickly would you say I could get it back up in? The reason I ask, is we at work sometimes need servers with a quickness. So im trying to figure out if its worth while to get a couple vps's and set them up in different configs...snapshot them and then destroy them till later when we randomly need one at a moments notice.

Thanks for the replies btw.

It will depend on the size of the snapshot but usually it takes less than 20 minutes, if you need something faster you probably want to have virtual servers already running and ready to pick up the load.

Okay gotcha. Thanks raiyu.