Snapshots allow you to quickly backup the current state of a server without having to take it offline. This allows you to perform system upgrades and changes and if something goes wrong you can quickly and easily revert back to the snapshot.
You can only have one snapshot of your server at a time and a snapshot will only be temporary with a maximum lifetime of 24 hours. While a snapshot is in place your server will experience a small decrease in performance which in most cases is negligible.
To begin managing the snapshots for your server, click the "Snapshots" link on the details page for your server.
To take a snapshot, specify the disk you would like to snapshot and select a snapshot lifetime from the drop down list. The snapshot will be automatically removed after the number of hours specified for the lifetime.
To roll your server back to the state it was in when the snapshot was taken, click the "Restore Snapshot" icon alongside the snapshot you would like to restore. Please note that this will shutdown and restart the server in order for changes to take affect. You will be prompted to confirm restoring a snapshot before this will happen.
To extend the life of a snapshot, click the "Reset Snapshot Expiry" icon next to the snapshot expiry. You will then be prompted to select an amount of time to extend the snapshot by.