PowerStore snapshot is a point-in-time copy of data of a storage resource such as a volume, volume group, virtual machine, or file system. You can take manual snapshots in the PowerStore Manager UI or create snapshot policies within protection policies to automatically take snapshots on a predefined schedule or frequency. Snapshots are inaccessible to the hosts directly.

To access the data in a snapshot for a storage resource, except for VM, you can create a read-writable thin clone from the snapshot and map it to the same host or to a different host. A thin clone is a space-efficient copy that shares the data blocks with its parent object. Multiple thin clones are allowed from a snapshot. Changes to one thin clone do not affect the parent object or other associated thin clones and conversely.

For VMs, PowerStore creates snapshots at the VM level, and the snapshot information reflects in the vCenter automatically. Use PowerStore snapshots as short-term temporary protection for MongoDB. It is not intended to replace the official MongoDB backup solution. PowerStore snapshots are crash consistent. To ensure the snapshot is application-consistent, we recommend quiescing any running MongoDB instance before taking a snapshot.

Some of the snapshot and thin clone use cases are as follows:

• Provide quick and easy rollback on operating system or application updates
• Clone the production environment to development or test environments with ease and without a full-size copy of the data.
• Reduce the complexity and time to refresh the data in a clone environment from the latest snapshot or thin clone

PowerStore also offers PowerStore command-line interface (CLI) and REST APIs that can be used to automate operations in scripts and other programming languages.

For more information about snapshots and thin-clones, see the document Dell PowerStore Protecting Your Data.