How to Take Proxmox Snapshots and Actually Restore From Them

The most important thing to understand about Proxmox snapshots: they are not backups.

A snapshot is a point-in-time state of a VM or container stored on the same disk as the VM. If your disk fails, the snapshot fails with it. Snapshots are for rollbacks — “I’m about to do something risky, let me checkpoint first.” They are not protection against hardware failure.

Backups are different: they copy your VM data to a separate location. They protect against both “I broke something” and “the hardware died.”

You need both. This guide covers how to use each.

Snapshots

When to take one

Take a snapshot before any significant change:

OS upgrade (apt dist-upgrade)
Major application update
Configuration changes you’re not sure about
Installing new software on a clean VM

Snapshots are cheap (seconds to create, minimal overhead while in use) and have saved me more than once.

How to take a snapshot

In the Proxmox web UI:

Select your VM or LXC container in the left panel
Click Snapshots in the top navigation
Click Take Snapshot
Give it a name (e.g., before-ubuntu-upgrade)
Add a description (optional but helpful later)
Check Include RAM if you want to capture the exact running state — this takes longer and uses more space, but lets you restore to the precise moment, running processes and all. For most cases, unchecked is fine.

Click Take Snapshot. For a typical VM, this takes 5-30 seconds.

How to restore from a snapshot

If something went wrong and you want to roll back:

Select the VM or container
Click Snapshots
Select the snapshot you want to restore to
Click Rollback

The VM reboots into the snapshot state. Any changes made after the snapshot are gone.

Important: The VM must be stopped to roll back (you can take snapshots of running VMs, but restore requires a stop). Proxmox will warn you.

Managing snapshot storage

Snapshots consume disk space proportional to how much has changed since the snapshot was taken. The longer a snapshot lives, the more space it uses.

Delete old snapshots you no longer need:

Select the VM → Snapshots
Select an old snapshot
Click Delete

Don’t keep more than 3-5 snapshots per VM unless you have abundant storage. A clean snapshot policy: take one before any major change, delete it when you’ve confirmed the change is stable (or restore it if not).

Backups

Backups in Proxmox copy the VM or container to a storage location outside the source disk. There are two main approaches: Proxmox’s built-in backup tool (vzdump) and Proxmox Backup Server (PBS).

Proxmox built-in backups (vzdump)

The simplest backup approach. Proxmox takes a complete copy of your VM or container and stores it as a .tar.zst or .vma.zst file.

Setting up storage for backups:

In the Proxmox UI, go to Datacenter → Storage. You need a storage target that supports backups (not all storage types do). A Directory type storage works:

Click Add → Directory
Set the path to an external drive or NFS share
Set Content to include VZDump backup file

Taking a manual backup:

Select your VM or container
Click Backup in the top navigation
Click Backup Now
Select your backup storage and compression mode
Mode: Snapshot is fastest and works for most workloads. Stop creates a clean backup by stopping the VM first. Suspend pauses the VM briefly.

Click Backup and watch the task log.

Scheduling automatic backups:

Go to Datacenter → Backup
Click Add
Set the schedule (e.g., daily at 3am)
Select which VMs/containers to include
Set how many backups to retain

I run daily backups with 7-day retention. That means 7 backup copies, with the oldest rolling off automatically.

Restoring from a backup

In Datacenter → Storage, navigate to your backup storage
Click Backups in the storage content view
Select the backup you want to restore
Click Restore
Choose a target VM ID and storage for the restored VM

The restore creates a new VM from the backup. It doesn’t automatically overwrite the broken original — you’ll need to delete the broken one afterward if you want to reuse its ID.

Alternatively: select the VM, click Backup, and find a restore option from the existing backups list.

The 3-2-1 rule

For a homelab that actually survives hardware failure:

3 copies of important data
2 on different storage media
1 off-site

For a home server, this looks like:

The live data on your server
A Proxmox backup to an external USB drive connected to the server
Critical data synced off-site (Backblaze B2, a relative’s server, etc.)

Backblaze B2 is about $0.006/GB/month. For 50GB of critical backups: $0.30/month. Worth it.

What snapshots can’t protect against

Disk failure: Snapshot lives on the same disk
Accidental file deletion (before snapshot): If you delete a file and then take a snapshot, the snapshot reflects the deleted state
Ransomware: If malware encrypts your files and you take a snapshot afterward, the snapshot is encrypted too
Server theft or fire: Both the server and any local backups are gone

This is why off-site backup matters. For data you can’t afford to lose, local backup is not sufficient.

Once you have snapshots and backups configured, the Proxmox post-install checklist covers other configuration steps to complete before running production workloads.