Home > Storage > PowerStore > Virtualization and Cloud > Dell PowerStore: Microsoft Hyper-V Best Practices > Application consistency with snapshots
PowerStore snapshots of Hyper-V hosts, VMs, and workloads are crash-consistent by default. Snapshots can be taken manually, or automatically as part of a recurring schedule.
When performing a recovery using a crash-consistent snapshot, it is like having the server or workload recover from a power loss.
Often, servers and nontransactional workloads can be recovered to a crash-consistent state without complications.
Transactional workloads such as Microsoft SQL Server risk data corruption and data loss if recovering to a crash-consistent state.
Consider these recommendations if application consistency is wanted before taking a PowerStore snapshot.
When the host or workload is in a consistent state, take a PowerStore snapshot. Then, revert the host, VM, or workload to its active state.
If possible, use scripting and automation tools to orchestrate a process that performs these steps automatically. Orchestration is desirable for several reasons:
The following sections provide examples for how to use PowerStore snapshots and thin clones in a Hyper-V environment.