ESXi 5.0 VMDK Modified date question

[kiwijj]

Hi,

In the datastore browser on ESXi 5.0 the VMDK files show a modified date of months ago, though when I login to the server and look I can see the *-flat.vmdk has todays date.

So when I look for orphaned files all of the VMDK's show up as orphaned. Any idea why the VMDK date modified is so old ?

[weinstein5]

I think what you are seeing is the difference between the -flat.vmdk and the .vmdk file - The ,vmdk is a much smaller file and contains the information about the virtual disk while the -flat.vmdk is where the disks data is stored and gets changed as the data is written to the virtual disk.

[kiwijj]

Yes, I know what the two files are and what they do, what I am asking is why the descriptor file (the *.VMDK) has an older date. On our ESXi 5.1 servers all of the *.VMDK and *-flat.VMDK are the same date and therefore do not show up as orphaned which is expected. I wonder if it is anything to do with the fact the VMFS version on the 5.0 servers is 3. I will upgrade them to 5 to see if that makes a difference