Create backups

Last update: April 16 2025

Create backups

You can back up manually or configure automatic scheduled backups.

Read more about full and incremental backups in the manual Network disk backups.

Backups do not have automatic health and consistency checks for copies. We recommend that you periodically back up — so you can verify that the recovery is working correctly.

Create a manual backup⁠

1. In control panel from the top menu, press Products and select Cloud servers.
2. Go to the section Disks.
3. On the menu of the disk, select Create a backup.
4. Click Create a backup.

Configure scheduled backups⁠

You can set disk backup settings in the backup plan:

• to which disks to apply the plan — for which disks backups will be created according to this plan;
• the type of backups to be created — complete or incremental;
• schedule — when disk backups will be created;
• how many recent full backups should be stored — more about backup storage.

You can apply a single backup plan to one disk or to multiple disks at once — you do not have to configure a backup schedule for each disk separately. You can apply any number of plans to a single disk.

The disk can have change the plan list that apply to him.

If you want to change the backup settings, you can edit the plan.

Create a plan⁠

1. in control panels from the top menu, press Products and select Cloud servers.

2. Go to the section Backups.

3. Open the tab Plans.

4. Click Create a plan.

5. Enter the name of the plan.

6. Select pool where the disk is located.

7. Mark the disks to which the plan will apply.

8. Select the type of backup: complete or incremental.

9. If you selected full backup, specify how to customize the schedule.

   By day of the week

   To configure backups by day of the week, mark the desired days and enter the time in the format ЧЧ:ММ in your time zone to which backups will be created.

   Via a cron statement

   To configure backups via a cron statement, enter the cron statement in UTC +0.

   The Cron expression consists of five values in order — they specify the time points at which backups will be created:

   • minutes from 0 to 59;
   • hours — 0 to 24;
   • days of the month — from 1 to 31;
   • month one through 12;
   • days of the week, 1 through 7.

   Any of the values can be replaced by the symbol * — it stands for every possible value.

   For example, the entry 0 0,12 * * 1,5 Will create backups on Monday and Friday at 00:00 and 12:00.

   You can use online editors to create cron statements — for example, crontab guru.

10. If you selected incremental backup, enter the time in the format ЧЧ:ММ in your time zone to which daily backups will be created.

A full backup is created first, then it is created exactly one week later and then once a week thereafter. Incremental backups are created on the remaining days.

11. Choose whether to keep all or the most recent backups.

12. If you choose to store recent backups, specify how many recent full backups to store. Minimum number of full backups to store:

    • for full backups, one;
    • for incremental backups — two. Incremental backups are stored in chains of seven backups — one full backup and six subsequent incremental backups. For example, if the plan settings specify that three full backups are stored, the last three backup chains will be stored.

    There is no limit to the number of backups that can be created within a single plan.

13. Click Create a plan.

Change the list of plans⁠

You can add any number of plans to the disk for which backups will be created and disconnect plans from it.

1. in control panels from the top menu, press Products and select Cloud servers.
2. Go to the section Disks.
3. On the menu of the disk, select Configure a backup plan.
4. To add a new plan, select an existing plan or press New plan and create a new one.
5. To deactivate the plan, in the plan bar, tap Disconnect.

Edit the plan⁠

You cannot change the type of backups in the plan.

1. in control panels from the top menu, press Products and select Cloud servers.
2. Go to the section Backups.
3. Open the tab Plans.
4. On the menu of the plan, choose Change settings.
5. Optional: Change the disks to which the plan applies. If you disconnect the plan from a disk, the backups created for that disk will be preserved.
6. Optional: change the schedule for creating backups.
7. Optional: change the backup storage settings.
8. Optional: If you are storing recent backups, change the number of backups stored. If you reduce this number, then after new backups are automatically created, previous backups that do not fall under the new limit will be deleted. For example, instead of storing seven backups, you set the number of backups to four — after creating one new backup, the first four backups will be deleted (leaving one new backup and three previous backups).
9. Click Save.