1. A system configured to create a writable, read-only snapshot of an active file system operating on a storage system that serves file and block protocol access to information stored on storage devices, the system comprising: a storage operating system having a storage space provided by the devices; an overlaying virtual disk (vdisk) layer of the storage space, the vdisk layer having at least one writable vdisk storage object in the active file system; and an underlying snapshot layer of the storage space, the snapshot layer having a snapshot file storage object functioning as a backing store to the writable vdisk storage object in the active file system.