Snapshots

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Create a Snapshot

1. Open the Thunder Compute sidebar panel.
2. Right click the running instance.
3. Select Create Snapshot.
4. Name the new snapshot.

Snapshotting happens in the background—you can continue using your instance immediately. The snapshot captures the exact state of the persistent disk at the moment you initiated it.

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View Snapshots

Your snapshots appear in the Thunder Compute panel below your instances.

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Restore from a Snapshot

1. Create a new instance.
2. Open the template menu.
3. Select your snapshot.

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Delete a Snapshot

1. Open the Thunder Compute sidebar panel.
2. Right click the snapshot.
3. Select Delete Snapshot.

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Best Practices

1. Name snapshots descriptively: Include the project, date, or purpose (e.g., llama-finetuned-jan2026)
2. Clean up unused snapshots: To minimize your bill, remove snapshots you no longer need.

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Snapshots vs External Backups

Snapshots are great for quickly restoring your environment, but they’re meant for convenience rather than long-term data security. We do not provide explicit guarantees about snapshot durability. For long-term data preservation, consider using:

• GitHub for code and configuration
• Local downloads for important outputs
• Cloud storage (R2, Google Drive) for large files

To learn about optimizing the a snapshot for faster creation and restoration, refer to our Speeding Up Snapshots guide.