ReadyNAS snapshots

Dewdman42 wrote:

Yea thanks, I understand what snapshots generally are and how they work.  I'm asking about the hidden directory called "/.snapshots" and another non-hidden directory called "/snapshot" that appears at the root level of my share.  Please read my previous post again..no need to retype it all out now..

I suspect the prior response was AI generated. 

If you set "Allow Windows Access" in the snapshot settings, you will see a lot of duplicated data.  Also, that setting will change the permissions on the snapshot to Read/Write.  That destroys the value of the snapshots for me, since it is far to easy to delete or modify the snapshot. You won't see those folders if you disable "Allow Windows Access".  I do keep "Allow Access to Windows Previous Versions" set. 

While we're on the subject of Settings...  I do NOT recommend using the "Smart Snapshots" setting - instead I use custom snapshots with limited retention, and also set "only take snapshots with changes"  The "smart snapshots" retain the monthly snapshots forever - which will eventually fill up the volume unless you periodically delete the oldest ones.

I don't know of any way to set up up the snapshots themselves to present just the changes.  But you can use "btrfs send" to copy just the changes to a different folder.  Keep in mind that the delta between the main share and each snapshot will increase over time, and more files will end up only in the snapshot when that happens.  So if you wanted to automate a daily incremental backup, you'd need to create the snapshot at midnight, and use "btrfs send" to copy the incremental changes in that snapshot the following midnight to a different share.  Then create a new snapshot the following day.