SnapRestore enables you to quickly revert a local volume or file to the state it was in when a particular Snapshot copy was taken. In most cases, reverting a file or volume is much faster than restoring files from tape or copying files from a Snapshot copy to the active file system.
What SnapRestore reverts: SnapRestore reverts only the file contents. It does not revert attributes of a volume. For example, the Snapshot copy schedule, volume option settings, RAID group size, and maximum number of files per volume remain unchanged after the reversion.
When to use SnapRestore: You use SnapRestore to recover from data corruption. If a primary system application corrupts data files in a volume, you can revert the volume or specified files in the volume to a Snapshot copy taken before the data corruption.
Why use SnapRestore rather than copying from a Snapshot copy: SnapRestore performs Snapshot copy restoration more quickly, using less disk space, than an administrator can achieve by manually copying volumes, qtrees, directories, or large files to be restored from the Snapshot copy system to the active file system. A large volume directory restore can be carried out in a few seconds using the SnapRestore feature.
SnapRestore can restore large volumes or files even if space limitations would prevent restoring by copying from a Snapshot copy.