What is a NetApp Snapshot?

• A. A live copy that updates in real time with writes.
• B. A tool for monitoring performance metrics.
• C. A point-in-time, read-only image of a volume; enables fast restores and space-efficient backups.
• D. A feature that automatically replicates data to a remote site.

Answer: (C)

A NetApp Snapshot is a point-in-time, read-only image of a volume. It captures the state of the data at the moment the snapshot is taken, so you can quickly restore or access that exact version later. It’s made space-efficient through a copy-on-write mechanism: the snapshot doesn’t copy all the data upfront. Instead, it shares data blocks with the original volume and only records changes that occur after the snapshot, so the snapshot uses minimal extra space. Because it represents a fixed state, you can restore quickly to that moment or mount it to recover individual files. It isn’t a live copy that updates with writes, it isn’t a tool for performance monitoring, and it isn’t an automatic remote replication feature (that’s handled by SnapMirror/SnapVault).