VMware Cloud Community
andaks
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

ESXi 4.1 shows almost full used disk drive...but...

ESXi 4.1 shows almost full used disk drive...but...indeed it's not true.

On my ESXi server I can see that I have only 200M free, when I open virtual machine which use this disk, it shows me that 53 G is free, not 200M.

Can somebody show me dirrection Smiley Happy to solve this issue.

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
Shakaal
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
Jump to solution

Hi,

Whatever type of disk you use in VMware once ESX allocates space to the Disk it will never take it back. It will happen both incase of Thin Disk as well as Thick disk. Only difference is that Thin disk allocation is on demand and for thick it is pre provisioned.

Now when you see from inside the guest, it will only see whatever amount the Guest is using it will never see outside that, because of Virtualization. But esx host is aware of what size it has allocated to that Disk.

Please refer to KB http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022242 for more information on types of disk available in VMware.

Regards

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
6 Replies
Shakaal
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
Jump to solution

Hi,

Whatever type of disk you use in VMware once ESX allocates space to the Disk it will never take it back. It will happen both incase of Thin Disk as well as Thick disk. Only difference is that Thin disk allocation is on demand and for thick it is pre provisioned.

Now when you see from inside the guest, it will only see whatever amount the Guest is using it will never see outside that, because of Virtualization. But esx host is aware of what size it has allocated to that Disk.

Please refer to KB http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022242 for more information on types of disk available in VMware.

Regards

Reply
0 Kudos
andaks
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I have external storage and datastore from it, which I connect to my ESXi host via SAN. And when i go to ESXi host via ssh I can see:

#> df -h

     vmfs3                   149.8G    149.6G    201.0M

The same values I can see from the Vsphere client

But when I open guest OS which use this datastore, it shows me that 53 G is free.

Dont understand why.

Reply
0 Kudos
continuum
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

your datastore is full !!!

when you use thin provisioned vmdks you should be aware of the fact that the amount of free space on the drive as perceived by the guest has nothing to do with the actual size of the vmdk.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

andaks
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Thanks guys Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
continuum
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

you should not power on the VM again on that datastore - filling up a datastore can easily result in corrupt vmdks

vmdks that were in action during a datastore fill-up can NOT always be repaired !!!


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

Reply
0 Kudos
andaks
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Yes, yes, you are right, now I'm totally understood all of these issues.

Its already fixed size, changes in size may happens only within this vmdk size, within guest OS.

Reply
0 Kudos