Creating a Volume Backup – Articles

Learn how to create a backup of your Block Storage volume in the OVHcloud Control Panel.

If you value the data stored in your Block Storage volumes, it is worth organizing the backup of this data to prevent the potential impact of any issue on this data, whether it is a human error or a cluster incident.

A volume snapshot is a recovery point stored within the same storage cluster as the original volume. Operations will be fast, but in case of an incident on the cluster, the volume and volume snapshot might be unavailable. Volume snapshot creation does not require the volume to be detached from the instance.

A volume backup is an image created out of your volume, which is stored in the Object Storage cluster where the original volume is located. The level of resiliency is ideal and will allow you to quickly react to any incident on your volume, creating another volume from the backup. Volume backup creation requires the volume to be detached from the instance.

Both volume snapshot and volume backup allow you to:

Create backups of your volume with a few clicks and keep them for as long as you need.
Use the backups to restore your volume state.
Use the backups as a template to create identical volumes.

Requirements

access to the OVHcloud Control Panel
a Block Storage volume created in your Public Cloud project

Creating a Backup

From the OVHcloud Control Panel:

Click Public Cloud in the top navigation bar.
Select your Public Cloud project.
Under Storage, click Block Storage.
In the row of the volume concerned, click the more options ... button and select Create a backup.

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It is not required to detach the volume from its instance first. However, if you wish to do so, please consult the Detaching a Volume section below.

On the next screen, select Volume Backup and then click Create backup. You can change the name of your backup if you like.

If your volume is attached to an instance, you will be prompted to detach it.

PCI_blockstorage_backup02*.png

The backup creation may take several hours, depending on the amount of data present on the volume, as well as the instance resource utilization and other host-specific factors.

We therefore recommend that you perform your backups outside of your production hours.

Other best practices include:

Avoid creating snapshots and backups during peak hours.
Regularly validate that you are able to get your data back from your volume snapshot or volume backup.
Install the qemu-guest agent if it is not installed, or try to disable it if necessary.
Even if not mandatory, prefer to detach your volume when creating a volume snapshot.

Since a volume backup is a clone of the entire disk, it will have the maximum size of the original volume, regardless of the actual disk space allocation.

You will find the list of your volume backups by clicking Volume Backup under Storage in the left-hand navigation bar. As soon as the volume backup creation is requested, it will be added to this table.

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Click the more options ... button to Delete or to Create a volume based on the respective volume backup. You can find information about creating a volume from a backup in this guide.

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Detaching a volume

If you wish to detach a volume from your instance, the best practice is to unmount the volume in the operating system before detaching it from the instance.

NOTE: An error message may appear if you have software or processes running on the additional disk. In this case, it is recommended to stop all processes before continuing.

On Linux

Establish an SSH connection to your instance, then use the command below to list the attached disks.

~$ admin@server-1:~$ lsblk

NAME    MAJ:MIN  RM   SIZE  RO  TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda     254:0    0     10G   0  disk
└─sda1  254:1    0     10G   0  part  /
sdb       8:0    0     10G   0  disk
└─sdb1    8:1    0     10G   0  part  /mnt/disk

Unmount the partition using the command below:

~$ admin@server-1:~$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Remove the device ID from the fstab to complete the unmount process, if this is not done, the partition will be mounted right back after a reboot.

~$ admin@server-1:~$ sudo nano /etc/fstab

Save and exit the editor.

Go to the Public Cloud section of your OVHcloud Control Panel and, in the left-hand menu under Storage, click on Block Storage.

Click on the more options ... button next to the corresponding volume and select Detach from instance.

PCI_blockstorage_backup05**.png

Click on Confirm in the pop-up window to start the process.

On Windows

Establish a remote desktop (RDP) connection to your Windows instance.

Once logged in, right-click on the Start Menu button and open Disk Management.

Right-click on the volume you wish to unmount and select Change Drive Letter and Paths....

Click on Remove to remove the drive.

Next, click on Yes to confirm the disk removal.

When finished, you can close the Disk Management window.