Cloning a Volume

You can create a new volume from any existing cached volume in the same AWS Region. The new volume is created from the most recent recovery point of the selected volume. A volume recovery point is a point in time at which all data of the volume is consistent. To clone a volume, you choose the Clone from last recovery point option in the Create volume dialog box, then select the volume to use as the source. The following screenshot shows the Create volume dialog box.

Cloning from an existing volume is faster and more cost-effective than creating an Amazon EBS snapshot. Cloning does a byte-to-byte copy of your data from the source volume to the new volume, using the most recent recovery point from the source volume. Storage Gateway automatically creates recovery points for your cached volumes. To see when the last recovery point was created, check the TimeSinceLastRecoveryPoint metric in Amazon CloudWatch.

The cloned volume is independent of the source volume. That is, changes made to either volume after cloning have no effect on the other. For example, if you delete the source volume, it has no effect on the cloned volume. You can clone a source volume while initiators are connected and it is in active use. Doing so doesn't affect the performance of the source volume. For information about how to clone a volume, see Creating a volume.

You can also use the cloning process in recovery scenarios. For more information, see Your Cached Gateway is Unreachable And You Want to Recover Your Data.

Cloning from a Volume Recovery Point

The following procedure shows you how to clone a volume from a volume recovery point and use that volume.

To clone and use a volume from an unreachable gateway

1. Open the Storage Gateway console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/home.

2. On the Storage Gateway console, choose Create volume.

3. In the Create volume dialog box, choose a gateway for Gateway.

4. For Capacity, type the capacity for your volume. The capacity must be at least the same size as the source volume.

5. Choose Clone from last recovery point and select a volume ID for Source volume. The source volume can be any cached volume in the selected AWS Region.

   

6. Type a name for iSCSI target name.

   The target name can contain lowercase letters, numbers, periods (.), and hyphens (-). This target name appears as the iSCSI target node name in the Targets tab of the iSCSI Microsoft initiator UI after discovery. For example, the name target1 appears as iqn.1007-05.com.amazon:target1. Ensure that the target name is globally unique within your storage area network (SAN).

7. Verify that the Network interface setting is the IP address of your gateway, or choose an IP address for Network interface.

   If you have defined your gateway to use multiple network adapters, choose the IP address that your storage applications use to access the volume. Each network adapter defined for a gateway represents one IP address that you can choose.

   If the gateway VM is configured for more than one network adapter, the Create volume dialog box displays a list for Network interface. In this list, one IP address appears for each adapter configured for the gateway VM. If the gateway VM is configured for only one network adapter, no list appears because there's only one IP address.

8. Choose Create volume. The Configure CHAP Authentication dialog box appears. You can configure CHAP later. For information, see Configuring CHAP Authentication for Your iSCSI Targets.

The next step is to connect your volume to your client. For more information, see Connecting Your Volumes to Your Client.

Creating a Recovery Snapshot

The following procedure shows you how to create a snapshot from a volume recovery point and using that snapshot. You can take snapshots on a one-time, ad hoc basis or set up a snapshot schedule for the volume.

To create and use a recovery snapshot of a volume from an unreachable gateway

1. Open the Storage Gateway console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/home.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Gateways.

3. Choose the unreachable gateway, and then choose the Details tab.

   A recovery snapshot message is displayed in the tab.

   

4. Choose Create recovery snapshot to open the Create recovery snapshot dialog box.

5. From the list of volumes displayed, choose the volume you want to recover, and then choose Create snapshots.

   Storage Gateway initiates the snapshot process.

6. Find and restore the snapshot.