What SnapLock volumes are

SnapLock volumes are of two types—SnapLock Compliance volume and SnapLock Enterprise volume.

The SnapLock Compliance volume provides WORM protection for files and also restricts the storage administrator’s ability to perform any operations that might modify or erase retained WORM records. SnapLock volumes use a secure ComplianceClock to enforce the retention periods. Use SnapLock Compliance in strictly regulated environments that require information to be retained for a specified period of time, such as those governed by SEC Rule 17a-4.

The SnapLock Enterprise volume provides WORM protection for files with a trusted model of operation to manage the systems. SnapLock Enterprise allows the administrator to destroy SnapLock Enterprise volumes before all locked files on the volume reach their expiry date.

You cannot use a SnapLock volume as a regular volume for data storage. In most cases, SnapLock volumes behave identically to regular volumes, but there are some specific and critical differences as far as functionality and administration are concerned that make the SnapLock volume unsuitable for use as regular volumes. Specific examples include the following:

Renaming directories on SnapLock volumes are not allowed.
Transition of the file attribute from writable to read-only commits a file to the WORM state.
Administrative interfaces are restricted (drastically for SnapLock Compliance volumes).