From c69d5041bbbd30f4285551c995af6b92204918c1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Roman Khavronenko <roman@victoriametrics.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2024 15:30:55 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] docs: mention requirements for `latest` backups (#5614)

Add docs to explain that `latest` backup folder can be accessed
more frequently than others. Hence, it is recommended to keep it
on storages with low access price.

Signed-off-by: hagen1778 <roman@victoriametrics.com>
---
 docs/vmbackup.md        | 4 +++-
 docs/vmbackupmanager.md | 7 ++++++-
 2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/docs/vmbackup.md b/docs/vmbackup.md
index 28562c6fab..2450dc241d 100644
--- a/docs/vmbackup.md
+++ b/docs/vmbackup.md
@@ -94,7 +94,9 @@ The command will upload only changed data to `gs://<bucket>/latest`.
 Where `<daily-snapshot>` is the snapshot for the last day `<YYYYMMDD>`.
 
 This approach saves network bandwidth costs on hourly backups (since they are incremental) and allows recovering data from either the last hour (`latest` backup)
-or from any day (`YYYYMMDD` backups). Note that hourly backup shouldn't run when creating daily backup.
+or from any day (`YYYYMMDD` backups). Because of this feature, it is not recommended to store `latest` data folder 
+in storages with expensive reads or additional archiving features (like [S3 Glacier](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes/glacier/)). 
+Note that hourly backup shouldn't run when creating daily backup.
 
 Do not forget to remove old backups when they are no longer needed in order to save storage costs.
 
diff --git a/docs/vmbackupmanager.md b/docs/vmbackupmanager.md
index 024cbe4a86..025b57eb18 100644
--- a/docs/vmbackupmanager.md
+++ b/docs/vmbackupmanager.md
@@ -57,7 +57,8 @@ To get the full list of supported flags please run the following command:
 
 The service creates a **full** backup each run. This means that the system can be restored fully
 from any particular backup using [vmrestore](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmrestore.html).
-Backup manager uploads only the data that has been changed or created since the most recent backup (incremental backup).
+Backup manager uploads only the data that has been changed or created since the most recent backup 
+([incremental backup](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmbackup.html#incremental-backups)).
 This reduces the consumed network traffic and the time needed for performing the backup.
 See [this article](https://medium.com/@valyala/speeding-up-backups-for-big-time-series-databases-533c1a927883) for details.
 
@@ -123,6 +124,10 @@ The result on the GCS bucket
 
   <img alt="latest folder" src="vmbackupmanager_latest_folder.webp">
 
+Please note, `latest` data folder is used for [smart backups](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmbackup.html#smart-backups).
+It is not recommended to store `latest` data folder in storages with expensive reads or additional archiving features
+(like [S3 Glacier](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/storage-classes/glacier/)).
+
 Please, see [vmbackup docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmbackup.html#advanced-usage) for more examples of authentication with different
 storage types.