Droplet Snapshot Restoration: In-Place Disk Overwrite Limitation

Recovery Goal and Current Constraint

The objective is to recover a production Droplet to a known-good state after a failed system upgrade using a previously captured snapshot. Current documented behavior requires provisioning an entirely new Droplet from the snapshot image rather than performing an in-place overwrite of the existing disk.

Operational Implications

This design introduces several constraints for production environments. The restored Droplet receives a new ephemeral IP address unless a Reserved IP is manually reassigned. Additionally, attached block storage volumes must be detached from the failed instance and reattached to the new one, and SSH host keys change, triggering client warnings.

Unresolved Decision Points

For teams maintaining strict recovery time objectives, the mandatory new-instance workflow adds procedural steps that may extend downtime windows.

• Does DigitalOcean support in-place disk restoration from snapshots for the same Droplet identifier?
• What is the recommended automation pattern for orchestrating Reserved IP reassignment and volume reattachment in a single recovery runbook?