Forum post for reference:

https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/am-i-the-only-one-who-would-find-this-useful-zfs-hold-to-protect-important-snapshots.90055/

Is there any activity on this? I have to admit it's kind of nuts that such an important feature (of a NAS appliance that focuses on backups, restoration, and data integrity) is relegated to the cryptic depths of Shell commands or SSH terminals.

It's very, very tedious to become a make-shift terminal whiz in an SSH window with a cominbation of zfs get, list, holds, and hold commands, with a dash of xargs, just to be able to review and manage snapshots that you wish to protect (using ZFS's built-in "hold" feature.)

I have to reiterate again, and this is from a user's and admin's perspective:

• WHEN CREATING A NEW SNAPSHOT, ONE OF THE OPTIONS SHOULD BE A CHECKBOX TO "HOLD" IT (I.E, PROTECT IT)

• WHEN REVIEWING SNAPSHOTS, ONE OF THE VISIBLE COLUMNS SHOULD BE "HOLD" (TO REVIEW OR SORT BY THIS FEATURE)

• WHEN REVIEWING SNAPSHOTS, ONE OF THE OPTIONS SHOULD BE THE ABILITY TO TOGGLE ON/OFF ITS "HOLD" PROPERTY (SEE ABOVE IMAGE)

The above should work for snapshots created manually or automatically. (It's especially important to have this feature so that an admin can protect a particular auto-generated snapshot from being deleted when it reaches its "expiration" date.

Is there any update on this? I noticed under "System > Boot" there is essentially a "Keep" checkbox for each boot environment. This is in the same spirit as "hold" for ZFS snapshots.

I believe two things would enhance the usability and practicality (and security) for snapshots presented in the GUI:

1) There should exist a checkbox for the "hold" feature of ZFS snapshots for each snapshot.

2) There should exist a bulk operation for multiple selected snapshots to "hold" all of them.

The ZFS snapshot "hold" feature is documented across the web and in official documentation. Even though it works using the shell or via an SSH connection, it dearly needs to be presented in the GUI.

Oracle Docs: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/819-5461/gjdfk/index.html

Geek Diary: https://www.thegeekdiary.com/understanding-holding-a-zfs-snapshot-feature/#:~:text=Holding%20a%20snapshot%20(zfs%20hold,using%20the%20zfs%20destroy%20command

As a sysadmin who manages four arrays from four different "big name" vendors, I regard this functionality as common and expected from any block storage device.  Adding my vote.