5.1.5. About the Snapshot Directory

What is the Snapshot directory used for?

The Snapshot directory contains full snapshots of all Strawberry-manged projects that are located on the online storage (production storage). The purpose of the Snapshot directory is to help Strawberry identifying deleted files and link them to the trash folder.

Where is the Snapshot directory located?

The Snapshot directory is located on the online storage (production storage) within the media_1 directory. Customers who use multiple storages will find a snapshot directory inside of each storage’s media root (e.g. media_1, media_2, media_3, etc.)

How does the Snapshot Feature Work?

While a project is opened in Strawberry, its Snapshot directory gets updated every 15 minutes. On every update, Strawberry compares the current state of the project with the most recent snapshot. By doing this, Strawberry can identify files that have been deleted from a project and link them to the trash location.

Does the Snapshot Directory Require Additional Disk Space?

The Snapshot directory does not use any additional storage disk space as it comprises hard links only.

Visualized Example

In this example, we use a project with 3 files. All files from the project are linked to the Snapshot directory.

Now, a user purposely or accidentally deletes a file (“FILE 3) from the project. Upon next comparison of the project and its Snapshot directory, Strawberry will recognize that “FILE 3” is no longer present in the project. It is however still present within the Snapshot directory which means, that the file has been deleted from the project. Strawberry will then link the file from the Snapshot to the trash location, where it resides for an admin-defined period of time.

When does Strawberry Delete Projects and Media Files from the Snapshot Directory?

• When a file gets deleted from a project, its snapshotted version gets moved from the snapshot to the Strawberry-managed trash directory.
• When a project gets deleted via the Strawberry admin panel, it gets moved from the Snapshot directory to the trash directory.
• When a project gets archived, it gets moved from the Snapshot directory to the trash directory.