# Does LVM Snapshot Backup Technique Really Work?

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/does-lvm-snapshot-backup-technique-really-work/5300>\
**Category:** Other MySQL® Questions\
**Created:** [December 16, 2016, 8:42am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/does-lvm-snapshot-backup-technique-really-work/5300 "2016-12-16T08:42:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![geekprophet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e36b37/32.png) [@geekprophet](https://forums.percona.com/u/geekprophet)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 8:42am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/does-lvm-snapshot-backup-technique-really-work/5300/1 "2016-12-16T08:42:31Z")

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I’ll be honest. I backup some of my Percona Server 5.6.28 + XtraDB databases as follows:

– flush tables with read lock  
– flush logs  
– take LVM snapshot of whole mysql folder tree  
– release locks  
– rsync the snapshot to another server

If we need to recover from a disaster, we simply rsync the whole folder back over from the most recent backup.(We also use rdiff-backup to maintain incremental backups over time.)

Is this a reliable way to do backups? Obviously this technique will only allow full databases to be restored, not individual tables. Other than that, are there potential downfalls?