Esxi 5.5 Storage Problem

[rolo96]

Hi there, I'm kind a new there was looking for answers long time couldn't find anything that helps me. So as you see on first picture, i have at least 300GB free space if I'm not wrong, but as you can see on second picture it shows that i only have 88mb free its going down and I'm sure when it goes at some point It will not work . Any advice or what can i do about that situation ? i think information isn't full here so if you need more details ask me and ill provide more information.Thanks

[a_p_]

The screenshots don't show the free disk space.

Anyway, it looks like the VMs have been created with thin provisioned virtual disks. This will cause the virtual disk file to grow over time. In addition to this snapshots - if there are one, or more - will also consume disk space (up to the provisioned disk size).

With thin provisioned virtual disks, snapshot, and low disk space it is important to check possible option to avoid an out-of-disk-space situation!

Please provide more details about the files from e.g. the datatore browser, which lists provisioned, as well as used disk space.

André

[rolo96]

Hi André thanks for replying. I think those are correct screens if you need more screens tell me which ones you need and i can provide also this is windows server and inside it there is plenty of space on both C and D disk. Also i don't know if i can delete anything from that datastore browser and which files can be deleted.

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

The second screenshot shows that your "file-server" has a 2 months old active  snapshot, which consumes almost 50GB disk space.

Since the virtual machine's base disk seems to be thick provisioned, I'd suggest that you shutdown the VM (due to the low free disk space), and run "Delete All" from the VM's Snapshot Manager to consolidate/merge the snapshot data into the base disk, and to free up these ~50GB disk space.

Due to the snapshot's size, this may take some time, so please remain patient.

André

[rolo96]

You mean this file? it show it was modified yesterday 7/11/2019 is it safe do delete it as you said via Snapshot Manager?  As i've seen some videos and read about it if i delete this snap whichs name is "1" it shoudn't be a problem it will keep working as before but i'll not have a snap anymore yes?

[rolo96]

Update:
i've deleted that snap as you said and i got extra space now, 1 more question.

is it somehow possible to stop that free space decreasing somehow?

also if you have some information about that where can i read about that to get more information.

[a_p_]

You can find information about snapshots in the documentation, in KB articles, or here in the VMTN communities.

In short: Snapshot in VMware products work in a way where all changes are written into a growable delta/snapshot file. Because you could theoretically change the whole disk content from a guest OS point of view, each delta file can grow up to the virtual disk's provisioned size (plus some metadata). Best practice with snapshots is to keep them only as long as required, and don't consider them as backups.

With your current configuration - thick provisioned virtual disks - the base virtual disk will not grow, i.e. you won't run into disk space issues without snapshots.

André