I am using Cassandra 1.2 db on windows 7.
I want to take the back up of a keyspace.
I am doing as following:
C:\Workspace\apache-cassandra-1.2.4-bin\bin> nodetool -h localhost -p 7199 snaps
hot myDb
Starting NodeTool
Requested snapshot for: myDb
Snapshot directory: 1371534210892
C:\Workspace\apache-cassandra-1.2.4-bin\bin>
So it shows snapshot directory as 1371534210892 . What does it mean?
Where can I find the snapshot just created ?
TL;DR;
Check C:\var\lib\cassandra\data\system\myDb\snapshots\1371534210892
Before I provide details its important that you know my environment so you can compare.
How I setup Cassandra
I downloaded the zip from Apache's website then I unzipped it to C:\apache-cassandra-1.2.5 and finally I added the CASSANDRA_HOME environment variable.
How I start / backup Cassandra
I start cassandra by running startup.bat in the bin folder:
C:\apache-cassandra-1.2.4\bin\cassandra.bat
I backup cassandra by running the same command that you did (I backed up system because it was a fresh cassandra install):
nodetool -h localhost snapshot system
# output:
Starting NodeTool
Requested snapshot for: system
Snapshot directory: 1371547087563
I then browsed to the following directory where I found the 1371547087563 folder:
C:\var\lib\cassandra\data\system\local\snapshots
The snapshot is also created for every other keyspace so with a clean install I could find it in:
C:\var\lib\cassandra\data\system\schema_columns\snapshots
C:\var\lib\cassandra\data\system\schema_columnfamilies\snapshots
C:\var\lib\cassandra\data\system\schema_keyspaces
So basically it backups up the 4 internal keyspaces (system, schema_columns, schema_columnfamilies, schema_keyspaces) and the keyspace that you provide on the end as a parameter to the nodetool command, but because I specified system as the param, the command created snapshots of the 4 internal keyspaces only.
In your case the fifth keyspace would be the one you are after.