Deleting snapshot files

Steps to delete snapshot files.

When taking a snapshot, previous snapshot files are not automatically deleted. You should remove old snapshots that are no longer needed.

The nodetool clearsnapshot command removes all existing snapshot files from the snapshot directory of each keyspace. You should make it part of your back-up process to clear old snapshots before taking a new one.

Procedure

To delete all snapshots for a node, run the nodetool clearsnapshot command. For example:
```
nodetool -h localhost -p 7199 clearsnapshot
```
Tarball path:
```
installation_location/resources/cassandra/bin
```
To delete snapshots on all nodes at once, run the nodetool clearsnapshot command using a parallel ssh utility.
To delete a single snapshot, run the clearsnapshot command with the snapshot name:
```
nodetool clearsnapshot -t <snapshot_name>
```
The file name and path vary according to the type of snapshot. See nodetools snapshot for details about snapshot names and paths.