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Snapshot retention planner
Turn an RPO, retention ladder, and change rate into an estimated footprint, reserve target, and runnable ONTAP policy draft.
Workload & retention
RPO cadence for the first tier
Model: each retained tier preserves changed blocks for its interval; a 20% safety factor covers variation. Snapshot block sharing means this is directional, not a guarantee.
Planning result
Required copies47Policy slots
Estimated footprint—Fine
Recommended
-snapshot-reserve—FineMonthly footprint cost—Planning rate
Reserve and autodelete notes
- Snapshot reserve is not a hard capacity limit. When reserve is exhausted, snapshots can consume active file-system space depending on volume settings.
- Autodelete is a pressure valve, not retention assurance. It can remove older snapshots to recover space; do not enable it blindly where policy or compliance requires guaranteed copies.
- Validate actual change with `volume show-space`, `volume snapshot show`, and workload history. SnapMirror labels, application-consistent backups, SnapLock, and FlexGroup support vary—check your ONTAP version before applying commands.