Virtual Machine disks consolidation is needed

[JeffBeaty]

Hello,

I have a VM on a vSphere 5.x server and I was running a backup task from Veeam that I had to manually stopped.

Now, the VM is showing a warning message that the disk needs consolidation.

From what I can see, only one of the tree disks needs the consolidation, but I was wondering if I need to power off the vm first before I run the snapshot consolidation process?

What could happen if I run this process while the VM is running?

Is there a way to do it without powering off the VM?

Thanks

 

[a_p_]

Depending on how the backup job was stopped, the issue may be related to the VM's virtual disk being still attached to the Veeam backup/proxy server. In this case, remove (DON't delete) the VM's virtual disk from the Veeam backup/proxy server.

André

[JeffBeaty]

Hi Andre,

Thanks for getting back. By any chance do you how can I check that on Veeam?

Thanks

[JeffBeaty]

Since I got the message on vSphere, I removed the VM from my backup task so I'm not currently backing up that VM to avoid more issues.

Would that mean that the disk is not attached to the Veeam server anymore?

[a_p_]

Since it's not really related to the VM, removing the VM from the backup task won't help.

Do you have a virtual or physical Veeam Backup server, and do you have Veeam Proxy servers installed?
In case of virtual proxies, open the Veeam proxies' virtual settings, to find out whether they still have the VM's .vmdk attached, and remove/detach it (without deleting it from disk).

André

[JeffBeaty]

Hi André,

Yeah I have a physical server running Windows Server 2022 and there I installed the Veeam Software 11.

When I go to the Backup Infrastructure menu I do see my default VMware Backup Proxy and the Backup Proxy. 

But when I right-click on both of them and go to Properties, I do not see any list of VMs or anything. Just "Transportation Mode", "connected datastores" and "Max concurrent tasks" and that's it.

I'm not sure how to check the .vmdk file on the Veeam Proxy.

[a_p_]

>>> I do see my default VMware Backup Proxy and the Backup Proxy. 

We are getting closer.

Is the Veeam Proxy a virtual machine? If yes, open it's settings from the vSphere UI to find out whether the Proxy still has the affected VM's virtual disk attached.

André

[RainierErold]

Had this happen to me as well. On my case it was using Synology Active Backup.

[RainierErold]

Based on his reply, I am guessing he has an all-in-one setup where as the veeam server is also the veeam proxy.

[JeffBeaty]

Hi,

RainierErold is right. I have a dedicated Server where I installed Veeam so the backup proxy and backup repository are defaults on that same machine.

[JeffBeaty]

In any case, I was able to run the consolidation without turning off the VM, and nothing happened. 😄

tho before running this, I removed the "backup" image that Veeam made before I had to stopped the process manually. 

so I guess I'm good. 

Thanks guys 😄