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zdickinson
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Expert

Delete Files From vSAN Datastore

This thread:  Re: Clean a VSAN Datastore, talks about using /usr/lib/vmware/osfs/bin/objtool to delete objects from a vSAN datastore.  How do I determine which objects make up a VMDK?

Full story, we have a third party replication software.  During a particular operation it's supposed to move VMDKs around.  Sometimes this fails and leaves the originating VMDK.  So at this point, it's just a file sitting on the datastore and not associated with any VM.  How do I go about deleting those files?  I guess it could be asked about any file on the datastore.  Let's day I stored some ISO files, how would you delete those.

I don't think that opening up the datastore browser, right click delete, is the correct route.  This is vSAN 6.

Thank you, Zach.

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zdickinson
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VMware support advised me to simply right click... delete through the datastore and that it's fine for the meta data to remain.  I did this, however no free space was re-claimed.  Any ideas?  I'll update as the case progresses.  Thank you, Zach.

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srodenburg
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I do the following in such cases:   I rename the file (or directory where the stale files are in) to <name>.delete

If that works, the file or folder, the file(s) were not locked and it's safe to delete them.

I never had a situation where the space was not reclaimed.

zdickinson
Expert
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Just so I understand.  On a vSAN datastore you would rename a file (making sure it was not in use) and the a right click... delete would remove the file and you would see that reflected in the free space available?  Thank you, Zach.

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zdickinson
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After a bit of time passed the free space was reclaimed.  Thank you, Zach.

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