Im new at Apache Cassandra, but my first focus at this topic was the Backup.
If you want to restore from a Snapshot (on new node/cluster) you have to shut down Cassandra on any node and clear any existing data from these folders:
/var/lib/cassandra/data
-> If you want to safe your System Keyspaces so delete only your Userkeyspaces folders
/var/lib/cassandra/commitlog
/var/lib/cassandra/hints
/var/lib/cassandra/saved_cashes
After this, you have to start Cassandra again (the whole Cluster). Create the Keyspace like the one you want to restore and the table you want to restore. In Your Snapshot folder you will find a schema.cql script for the creation of the table.
After Creating the Keyspaces an tables again, wait a moment (time depends on the ammount of nodes in your cluster and keypsaces you want to restore.)
Shut down the Cassandra Cluster again.
Copy the Files from the Snapshot folder to the new folders of the tables you want to restore. Do this on ALL NODES!
After copying the files, start the nodes one by one.
If all nodes are running, run the nodetool repair command.
If you try to check the data via CQLSH, so think of the CONSISTENCY LEVEL! (ALL/QUORUM)
Thats the way, wich work at my Cassandra cluster verry well.