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Systems & Data Center · Foundational

Virtual Machine Snapshot

A point-in-time capture of a VM's disk state, and optionally memory, used for short-term rollback.

Definition

Snapshots create delta disks that grow with changes and degrade performance over time. They are not backups and should be removed after use. Quiesced snapshots use VMware Tools or VSS for file-system consistency.

Example

An admin snapshots a VM before patching and deletes the snapshot after verifying the update.

Exam tip

Long-lived VM snapshots harm performance and consume datastore space; they are not a backup.

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