I understand what you are saying, and I understand how the backup_label works - but I still don't understand why the pg_start and pg_stop commands are REQUIRED when doing a snapshot backup to ensure data integrity.Surely not using them and restoring a snapshot is the same as starting after a crash, and will result in log replay to get to the latest possible consistent state?
That's true provided that all of your data is on a single volume, and you trust your "snapshot" to be free of bugs.
Cheers,
Jeff
