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Snapshots capture the full disk state of a running instance, letting you restore your environment later without reinstalling dependencies or re-downloading models. You can also use snapshots to change instance specifications by restoring to a new instance with different GPU or CPU settings.

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Create a Snapshot

On the main Instances page:
  1. Select your running instance using the checkbox
  2. Click Snapshot in the actions bar
  3. Enter a name for your snapshot
Snapshotting happens in the background—you can continue using your instance immediately. The snapshot captures the exact state at the moment you initiated it.

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View Snapshots

Navigate to the Snapshots section to see all your saved snapshots with their status, size, and creation date.

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Restore from a Snapshot

When creating a new instance, select your snapshot from the template options.
Restoring from a snapshot can take up to 8 minutes per 100GB of data.

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Delete a Snapshot

Navigate to the Snapshots page to view all your snapshots and their status. Select a snapshot using the checkbox and click Delete in the actions bar to remove it.

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Best Practices

  1. Name snapshots descriptively: Include the project, date, or purpose (e.g., llama-finetuned-jan2026)
  2. Snapshot before major changes: Create a snapshot before installing new packages or modifying your environment
  3. Clean up unused snapshots: Snapshots count toward your storage. Delete old ones you no longer need
  4. Keep snapshots small: Remove large temporary files before creating a snapshot to speed up creation and restoration

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Snapshots vs External Backups

Snapshots are great for quickly restoring your environment, but they’re tied to Thunder Compute. For long-term data preservation, also use:
  • GitHub for code and configuration
  • Local downloads for important outputs
  • Cloud storage (R2, Google Drive) for large files