Snapshot (computer storage)

This prevents the backup from being atomic and introduces a version skew that may result in data corruption.

Version skew may also cause corruption with files which change their size or contents underfoot while being read.

This is tolerable for low-availability systems (on desktop computers and small workgroup servers, on which regular downtime is acceptable).

This method of pointer-based snapshots consumes less disk capacity than if the data set was repeatedly cloned.

On Linux, Logical Volume Manager (LVM) allows creation of both read-only and read-write snapshots.

[2] Snapshots have also been available in the NSS (Novell Storage Services) file system on NetWare since version 4.11, and more recently on Linux platforms in the Open Enterprise Server product.