Protecting FlexGroup volumes using Snapshot copies

You can create Snapshot policies that automatically manage the creation of Snapshot copies or you can manually create Snapshot copies for FlexGroup volumes. A valid Snapshot copy is created for a FlexGroup volume only after ONTAP can successfully create a Snapshot copy for each constituent of the FlexGroup volume.

1. Create a Snapshot policy or manually create a Snapshot copy:

   If you want to create a...	Enter this command...
   Snapshot policy	volume snapshot policy create Important The schedules that are associated with the Snapshot policy of a FlexGroup volume must have an interval greater than 30 minutes. When you create a FlexGroup volume, the default Snapshot policy is applied to the FlexGroup volume.
   Snapshot copy manually	volume snapshot create Note After you create a Snapshot copy for a FlexGroup volume, you cannot modify the attributes of the Snapshot copy. If you want to modify the attributes, you must delete and then re-create the Snapshot copy.

   Client access to the FlexGroup volume is briefly quiesced when a Snapshot copy is created.
2. Verify that a valid Snapshot copy is created for the FlexGroup volume: volume snapshot show -volume volume_name -fields state

   Example

   cluster1::> volume snapshot show -volume fg -fields state
   vserver volume snapshot               state
   ------- ------ ---------------------- -----
   fg_vs   fg     hourly.2020-08-23_0505 valid
   
3. View the Snapshot copies for the constituents of the FlexGroup volume: volume snapshot show -is-constituent true

   Example

   cluster1::> volume snapshot show -is-constituent true
                                                                    ---Blocks---
   Vserver  Volume   Snapshot                                  Size Total% Used%
   -------- -------- ------------------------------------- -------- ------ -----
   fg_vs    fg__0001
                     hourly.2020-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%
            fg__0002
                     hourly.2020-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%
            fg__0003
                     hourly.2020-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%
   ...
            fg__0016
                     hourly.2020-08-23_0505                    72MB     0%   27%