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An instant snapshot is an in-place backup of a disk that can be used to rapidly create a new disk in minutes.
Instant snapshots capture data at a specific point in time. They are optimized for rapidly restoring captured data to a new disk. Use instant snapshots to quickly recover data in cases where the zone and disk are still intact but the data on the disk has been lost or corrupted, such as the following:
Creating an instant snapshot of a disk before one of these events occurs lets you quickly restore the data from the instant snapshot to a new disk. Reducing the time to restore a disk helps avoid downtime and long maintenance windows.
Instant snapshots are incremental and can be more cost effective than using multiple disk clones.
Warning: Instant snapshots of a disk are deleted when the disk is deleted and don't protect against zonal or regional failures. To protect your data from zonal or regional failures, create a backup in another region using standard snapshots or another data backup option. Snapshot typesYou can backup a disk with snapshots. The 3 types of snapshots—standard, instant, and archive—all capture the contents of a disk at a specific point-in-time.
The following are the key differences between the snapshot types:
An instant snapshot of a disk only exists until the source disk is deleted. Standard and archive snapshots aren't deleted with the source disk. Therefore, if you want to retain a backup of a disk after you delete the disk itself, use archive or standard snapshots.
Data recovery timeThe data recovery time is the length of time needed to create a new disk from a snapshot and varies by snapshot type.
The storage location is the zone or region where Compute Engine stores the snapshot.
Compute Engine stores archive and standard snapshots in the same manner. Copies of archive and standard snapshots are stored across multiple locations with automatic checksums to ensure the integrity of your data.
Unless otherwise specified, references to standard snapshots include archive snapshots.
Snapshot type comparisonThe following table compares the differences between the types of snapshots:
Snapshot type Best for Storage redundancy Support for Hyperdisk Can be created with snapshot schedules Deleted on source disk deletion Standard snapshots Geo-redundant data backup to safeguard against local, zonal, and regional outages. Redundant. Stored in one or more regions. Not restricted to the same zone or region as the source disk. Yes Yes No Archive snapshots Same as standard snapshots, but for data that is rarely accessed and must be retained for several months or years. Lower cost geo-redundant storage that is better suited for data related to compliance, audits, and cold-storage. Redundant. Stored in one or more regions. Not restricted to the same zone or region as the source disk. Yes No No Instant snapshots In-place data backup to enable quick restore to a new disk in case of user error or application corruption. Not redundant. Stored in the same zone or region as source disk only. Yes, for certain You can't create instant snapshots of Hyperdisk ML or Hyperdisk Throughput volumes.
In addition to snapshots, Compute Engine offers other data backup options. Review the chart describing data backup options.
The information in this document applies to instant snapshots. Learn more about standard snapshots.
Supported disk typesInstant snapshots support the following disk types:
You can back up both boot and non-boot disks with instant snapshots.
Instant snapshots can be used with zonal and regional disks. You can't use instant snapshots to back up Hyperdisk Throughput or Hyperdisk ML volumes.
An instant snapshot of a disk is always stored in the same zone or region as the disk. For example, instant snapshots of a disk in the us-east1-d zone are stored in the us-east1-d zone. Likewise, instant snapshots of a regional Persistent Disk volume in the us-east1 region are stored in the us-east1 region.
The data in snapshots is read-only. To access or modify the data on a snapshot, create a disk from the snapshot.
Create a disk clone if you want a writeable, immediately accessible copy of a disk for debugging or experimentation.
Work with instant snapshotsTo verify, view, or modify the data on a snapshot, create a disk from the snapshot. After you create the disk, you can attach it to a VM or create a new VM from the disk, if it is a boot disk.
If you no longer need an instant snapshot, delete the snapshot to reduce your storage costs.
You can list all the instant snapshots in a project, or only list the instant snapshots of a disk.
For a given disk, there are limitations regarding the maximum number of instant snapshots and maximum time between snapshots.
You can't directly move an instant snapshot to a different location, but you can create a standard snapshot from an instant snapshot and store the standard snapshot in the location that you want.
LimitationsYou can't select the storage location of an instant snapshot. It's always stored in the same region or zone as the source disk.
When you delete a disk, all instant snapshots of the disk are deleted. This means that when you delete a VM, instant snapshots of the VM's boot disk are deleted. Instant snapshots of non-boot disks attached to the VM are also deleted if you've enabled auto-delete for the disk. To retain the data on an instant snapshot before it is deleted, create a standard snapshot from the instant snapshot.
An instant snapshot is accessible only within the zone or region where it's stored. To move an instant snapshot to another region, you must create a standard snapshot from the instant snapshot.
When you create a disk from a CMEK-encrypted instant snapshot, you must provide the instant snapshot's encryption key.
You can create a standard snapshot of an individual disk at most 6 times every 60 minutes. This limit also applies to creating a standard snapshot from an instant snapshot of a disk.
You can't create a VM from an instant snapshot of a boot disk. Create a disk from the instant snapshot first, and choose the disk as the source for the VM.
You can create an instant snapshot of a given disk at most once every 30 seconds.
You can't have more than 32 instant snapshots of the same disk.
You can't create instant snapshots with snapshot schedules.
You can't create instant snapshots on secondary asynchronously replicated Persistent Disk volumes.
Instant snapshots are crash consistent and not application consistent. This means that any in-memory data that hasn't yet been written to the disk isn't captured in the instant snapshot. If you require application consistency, create an application consistent standard snapshot.
You can't move a disk until you delete all the instant snapshots of the disk. For more information, see Moving a disk that has instant snapshots.
You can't edit the data stored in an instant snapshot.
You can't recover deleted instant snapshots.
The following costs apply to instant snapshots:
Instant snapshots are billed based on the amount of data changed on the disk since the instant snapshot was taken.
The following is a summary of how costs are calculated:
After taking an instant snapshot, there is no additional storage cost until the data on the source disk changes.
For a given instant snapshot, storage costs increase as you write to the disk until you create another instant snapshot. Subsequent changes to the disk are billed to the newer snapshot.
Whenever a block on the disk is changed, charges accrue to the most recent instant snapshot of that disk. If other instant snapshots had tracked changes to the same blocks, charges for those blocks only apply to the newest instant snapshot.
Suppose you create an instant snapshot, IS-1, of a disk at 9:00. At that time, the size of IS-1 is 0 bytes. For the next 90 minutes, you write data to the disk and create additional instant snapshots, IS-2 and IS-3, at 9:30 and 10:15, respectively.
The total costs at 10:30 are as follows:
Operation costs:
IS-1.IS-2.IS-3.Storage costs:
IS-1 for the bytes changed on the disk from 9:00 to 9:30.IS-2 for the bytes changed on the disk from 9:30 to 10:15.IS-3 for the bytes changed from 10:15 to 10:30.An instant snapshot uses the same encryption as its source disk. You can't encrypt an instant snapshot with a key that is different from the key used by the source disk.
Suppose you have a disk, D-1, that's encrypted with a customer-supplied encryption key (CSEK) or a customer-managed encryption key (CMEK).
If you create an instant snapshot, IS-1 from D1,IS-1 uses the same encryption keys as D-1. In addition, if you create a disk, D-2, from IS-1, D-2 also uses the same encryption keys as IS-1 and D-1.
When you create a disk from a CSEK- or CMEK-encrypted instant snapshot, you must provide the encryption keys for the source disk.
What's nextExcept as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2025-08-14 UTC.
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