Thick Provision disk provisioned space is much more than used space

[m4biz]

Hi.

On my ESXi server I've several VMs created using "Thick Provision Lazy zeroed".

But I've noted that the provisioned space is much more than used space (the same I've specified during the VM creation + snapshots eventually present).

This is a typycal situation:

I.e., during creation of this machine (DC1-2008) i've specified a thick disk of 32 GB but, actually, the provisioned disk is of about 67 GB.

Is this a normal behaviuor ?

What exactly means "provisioned space"?

In addition, if I select during the VM creation "Thin disk", the provisioned disk is exactly the same that I've initially specified (see New WinXP-Client on the previous image).

Can anyone support me on this issue?

Thanks in advance.

[a_p_]

The provisioned disk space is the maximum disk space that could be consumed (worst case scenario) by the VM. In your case it looks like you have a VM with the 32GB virtual disk, about 4GB memory (which consumes 4GB for the .vmem file) plus one active snapshot.

32GB disk + 32GB snapshot + 4GB swap = 68GB

André

[m4biz]

Hi Andrè.

Thank for your reply.

But I've not well understood.

The file actually present on the datastore (related to this VM), are these:

as you see, 36,33 GB total (32 + 4 GB of snapshots = 36 GB).

But why other 32 GB provisioned?

This is my doubt.

[kjb007]

I was able to replicate this behavior as well.  As soon as I took my snapshot, my provisioned space doubled my base disk.

-KjB

[kjb007]

As a.p. pointed out, it's taking a worst case scenario for provisioned space.

-KjB

[a_p_]

If these are the files in your datastore, your backup application may have issues and should call Veeam support immediately!

To first answer the question about the profisioned disk space. You do have a virtual disk (32GB) and one!? active snapshot (000003) which adds another 32GB to the provisioned disk space since the snapshot could grow up to the size of the base disk. Together with the 4GB memory for the .vmem file (which I don't see on the screen shot!?) this adds up to the 68GB provisioned disk space. The size reported by Veeam is the used disk space rather than the provisioned one.

Now regarding the "issues" I mentioned earlier. It looks like the backup does not properly clean up the delta.vmdk files as it should. Actually the delta.vmdk files should be deleted after the backup completes. In addition to this each delta.vmdk (as well as flat.vmdk) usually has its corresponding .vmdk header file (the small ones).

André

[m4biz]

Hi.

When I've deleted all snapshots, the "provisioned space" was the same as "used space".

Thanks to all.