Set automatic snapshot policies for a disk - Elastic Compute Service

To manage different requirements for a disk's snapshot creation time, frequency, and retention period, you can bind multiple automatic snapshot policies to it. This lets you meet diverse backup needs, such as high-frequency, short-term backups and long-term data archival.

Usage notes

Ensure that your disk meets one of the following conditions:

The disk is attached to an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance that is in the Running or Stopped state.
The cloud disk is Unattached and was previously attached to an ECS instance.
You can determine if a disk has a history of attachments by calling the DescribeDisks operation and checking the AttachedTime field.

Procedure

Set an automatic snapshot policy for a single disk

Go to ECS console - Block Storage. In the top navigation bar, select the target region and resource group.
In the Actions column for the target disk, click Configure Automatic Snapshot Policy.
On the Configure Automatic Snapshot Policy page, you can add or remove policies. You can attach up to 10 automatic snapshot policies to a single disk.
- Add a policy: In the Automatic Snapshot Policy drop-down list, select an existing policy. Or click Create Policy, follow the on-screen instructions to complete policy Create, and then click OK.
- Delete a policy: In the Automatic Snapshot Policy list, click the X icon next to the policy you want to delete. Then click OK.
  Important
  After you delete an automatic snapshot policy, automatic snapshots are no longer created based on this policy. Ensure that your data is protected.

Bind disks to an automatic snapshot policy

Go to the ECS console > Automatic Snapshot Policy page. In the upper-left corner, select the resource group and region for the policy.
In the Actions column for the target policy, perform one of the following operations:
- Bind disks: Click Bind Disk. In the Optional Disks section, select the target disks and then click Bind.
  You cannot select disks that are already bound to the policy or have reached the 10-policy limit.
- Unbind disks: Click Unbind Disk. In the Optional Disks section, select the target disks and then click Unbind.
  Important
  After a disk is unbound from a policy, automatic snapshots are no longer created for it. Ensure your data protection plan is not affected.

Billing

Creating an automatic snapshot policy is free of charge. However, you are charged for the tasks that the policy runs. You can reduce snapshot storage costs by enabling automatic snapshots to be released with their disks, periodically deleting unused automatic snapshots, and archiving snapshots.

Automatic snapshot creation tasks: Snapshots created by a policy are billed based on their size at the standard snapshot storage fee.
Cross-region replication tasks: If the policy has Cross-region replication featureenabled, you will incur charges for snapshot replication traffic and standard snapshot storage in the destination region, in addition to the standard snapshot fees in the source region.

Quotas and limitations

You can bind a maximum of 10 automatic snapshot policies to a single disk.
The number of concurrent snapshot creation tasks (both automatic and manual) for a single disk is limited. If this limit is exceeded when a policy is triggered, the task is skipped and will be retried at the next scheduled time point. The task limits for different disk types are as follows:
Disk category
Task limit
ESSD series (ESSDs, ESSD AutoPL, ESSD Entry, and zone-redundant ESSDs)
10
Previous generation disks (standard SSDs, ultra disks, and basic disks)
1
If a policy has cross-region snapshot replication enabled, a new replication task is skipped if another task for the same disk, source region, and destination region already exists. The system retries the task at the next scheduled time.
For the maximum number of automatic snapshots supported per disk, see Snapshot limitations. When the number of automatic snapshots reaches this limit, the system deletes the oldest automatic snapshot created by the policy. Plan your snapshot retention period carefully to avoid accidental deletion of important snapshots.

More operations

Enable automatic snapshot deletion on disk release

By default, an automatic snapshot's lifecycle is determined by its policy's retention period. Releasing the disk does not affect the snapshot. You can enable the Delete Automatic Snapshots While Releasing Disk property.

Important

If the Delete Automatic Snapshots While Releasing Disk property is enabled, all automatic snapshots of the disk are deleted immediately when the disk is released (either through manual release, release with its instance, or when changing the operating system), even if their retention period has not expired.

Go to ECS console - Block Storage. In the top navigation bar, select the target region and resource group.
In the Actions column for the target disk, click Modify Attributes
In the Modify Disk Attributes dialog box, select the Delete Automatic Snapshots While Releasing Disk checkbox.
You can clear this checkbox later to disable Delete Automatic Snapshots While Releasing Disk
Click Confirm.

How do I view created automatic snapshots?

After a policy runs, it automatically creates snapshots on the ECS console > Snapshots page.

The naming format for automatic snapshots is auto2.0_yyyyMMdd_SnapshotPolicyId, and their Source is Automatic Creation.

auto2.0: Indicates an automatic snapshot.
See Snapshot FAQ to learn about the differences between automatic snapshots and Manual Snapshots.
yyyyMMdd: The date the snapshot was created, where y is the year, M is the month, and d is the day.
SnapshotPolicyId: The ID of the automatic snapshot policy that created the snapshot.

For example, auto2.0_20241225_sp-2zeff8vy17u91rn5**** indicates an automatic snapshot created on December 25, 2024, by the automatic snapshot policy with the ID sp-2zeff8vy17u91rn5****.

Disk category	Task limit
ESSD series (ESSDs, ESSD AutoPL, ESSD Entry, and zone-redundant ESSDs)	10
Previous generation disks (standard SSDs, ultra disks, and basic disks)	1