Backup types for snapshot sets

When creating a snapshot set, you can specify that the snapshots be created as either a Full backup or Copy backup type. Either type can be used to restore a database. However, if you want to replay logs in SQL Server as part of restoring a database, a Full backup needs to have been created earlier. When replaying logs, you can replay from the time of the last Full backup. A Copy backup does not affect this sequence of log replay and therefore is often used as an "out of band" copy for purposes such as testing or data mining.