# Is it possible to create the initial snapshot on external drive and move it to sftp location afterwards?
**URL:** https://kopia.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-the-initial-snapshot-on-external-drive-and-move-it-to-sftp-location-afterwards/2510
**Category:** General Topics
**Created:** [December 14, 2023, 10:58am UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-the-initial-snapshot-on-external-drive-and-move-it-to-sftp-location-afterwards/2510 "2023-12-14T10:58:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@helyon](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/helyon)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2023, 10:58am UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-the-initial-snapshot-on-external-drive-and-move-it-to-sftp-location-afterwards/2510/1 "2023-12-14T10:58:58Z")
Based on the answers I read here, I think it’s possible but I want to be sure for exactly this scenario:
I want to create a sftp repository on a remote NAS system in my parents house (via VPN). Creating the initial snapshot would take a week or so over the internet.
Before I transport my Homeserver to my parents to let it create the first snapshot there via LAN over night, I got the idea to create a repository on an external ext4 drive and create the first snapshot there. Then I just bring the drive only to my parents and copy the created Kopia files to their NAS.
Will it be possible to just connect to the originally “local” repository via SFTP afterwards and let it create the regular snapshots?
Thanks in advance 😊
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### Author:  [@helyon](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/helyon)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2023, 11:43am UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-the-initial-snapshot-on-external-drive-and-move-it-to-sftp-location-afterwards/2510/2 "2023-12-16T11:43:28Z")
For everyone who wants to do it too: It works! I have also created a new snapshot and everything goes as it should
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### Author:  [@budy](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/budy)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2023, 9:29pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-the-initial-snapshot-on-external-drive-and-move-it-to-sftp-location-afterwards/2510/3 "2023-12-16T21:29:32Z")
Yeah, that works as long as the repo’s underlying fs doesn’t change. This goes mainly for cloud-based vs. local file systems. It doesn’t actually depend on how you access that repo… so you can interchange a local and sftp repo, but not a local and cloudbased (S3) one.