Home > Storage > PowerVault > Guides > Dell PowerVault ME5 Series: Microsoft Hyper-V Best Practices > Crash-consistent and application-consistent snapshots
ME5 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 an ME5 snapshot.
When the host or workload is in a consistent state, take an ME5 snapshot. Then revert the host, VM, or workload to its active state.
If possible, leverage scripting and automation tools to orchestrate a process that performs these steps automatically. Orchestration reduces administrative overhead and helps eliminate mistakes due to human error.