Increasing (time) interval between snapshots

[zeca]

I'd like to create a snapshot schedule as follows:
1- 1 snapshot per day, retaining each snapshot for 1 month
2- After 1 month, retain only 1 snapshot per week (eg snapshots from days 1+7*n - ie, days 1, 8, 15, etc)
3-After 6 months, retain only 1 snapshot per month (eg retain only snapshots from day 1 of each month)

Is this common/good practice?

One way to implement this in FreeNAS would be to go to Periodic Snapshot Tasks and create 3 separate snapshot schedules, one for the daily schedule (with 30 day retention), another for the monthly schedule (with 6 month retention) and another for the semestral schedule.

Is this the recommend/best way to do it, or is there a simpler alternative?

 

[Johnny Fartpants]

Sounds fine. I do the following on all of my boxes for comparison.

1. snapshot every hour and keep for 1 day
2. every day and keep for two weeks
3. every week keep for a month
4. every month keep for a year

All setup via 'Periodic Snapshots' and also replicated to a secondary machine.

 

[DigitalADHD]

Quick question, I'm flummoxed on if a periodic snapshot is set to the following,
3. every week keep for a month - Set to everyday of the week
How does this work, It runs on the first day the lifetime expires? It doesn't run everyday right?

 

[Kevin Horton]

Quick question, I'm flummoxed on if a periodic snapshot is set to the following,
3. every week keep for a month - Set to everyday of the week
How does this work, It runs on the first day the lifetime expires? It doesn't run everyday right?

It should run for the first time in the next hour or so after you create the periodic snapshot, and then every week after that.

 

[DigitalADHD]

I apologize ahead of time for being dense, but if this is set for everyday the interval is one week when will it actually run a week from when it originally runs? I guess having the days there when you picked run every week confuses me sorry.

 

[Kevin Horton]

Why not set up the periodic snapshot as you describe, then later go to the Storage -> Snapshots section of the GUI and see which snapshots have been created? If you aren’t getting the results you want, then you can tweak the settings.

 

[DigitalADHD]

Sigh

 

[fracai]

caveat: this is based on my memory of how things have worked, I'm not sure if it has changed recently.

The snapshot/replication job runs every five minutes (every minute?). It checks the existing snapshots to see what the latest is and checks the configured snapshot intervals. If any interval is out of date it starts a snapshot. If any have expired they are deleted.

If I'm understanding you correctly, the answer to your question is that it will create the first snapshot as soon as your constraints can be satisfied. If you check off every day, every hour, the 10 minute, and it is currently 1315 the first snapshot will be at 1410. If it's currently 1508 the first snapshot will be 1510. If the first day you have selected isn't today, the first snapshot will be tomorrow or whenever a selected day occurs.

I hope that helps.

 

[DigitalADHD]

Thank you,

So If set today 12/10 for every week at 13:00 with a 2 week retention, but everyday is enabled, Today is Monday, the next one will run some time around 13:00 - 13:05 on 12/17, with the one on 12/10 expiring on 12/24, The day at that point is irrelevant, If it were set to daily but only on mon wed friday then the select days matter?

Sorry so confused.

 

[fracai]

Without looking at an image of what you have configured, yes that sounds correct.
If you post an image I can verify that, but it sounds like you have it worked out.