Guest OS has duplicate .vmdk files

[MattR2]

The guest OS has 4 virtual  disks mapped to it (36 GB, 36 GB, 146 GB, and 17 GB), they are all on the same datastore.

I recently ran into an issue of the datastore running out of space and noticed that the folder of this server had duplicate vmdk files for each of these disks (as seen in the attached image).  I am guessing that VDR was creating snapshots and it messed up at some point (VDR currently does not work for this server).

The original vmdk files were:

cnmonitoring1_1.vmdk

cnmonitoring1_2.vmdk

The new ones are:

cnmonitoring1-000001.vmdk

cnmonitoring1_1-000002.vmdk

etc..

It looks like all the virtual disks are mapped to the new vmdk files.

I need to get this server cleaned up so I can get some space back.  The datastore is a total size of 500 GB and all servers on that data store should be around 350 GB but I currently only have 42 GB free because of this server.

Thanks in advance,

Matt

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the community.

Those file are snapshot files.

You have to consolide your snap, but you need free space.

Or you can clone your VM to another datastore (this will consolidate the last state).

Andre

[MattR2]

I am unable to consolidate the snapshot since nothing is showing for them.  

I will try to clone the machine to another datastore and see how that goes and let you know.

[DPike]

I recently went through this issue as well. Andre is right, they are snapshot files. Since they are not showing up in the snapshot manager, they are basically orphaned. Performing a clone will be the only way to consolidate them.

One other issue you may run into is that after you delete the old VM from Disk, you will not be able to delete the VMDK files as they have a lock, but the VM itself will be deleted. The fix for this is to write down which host the VM resides on before performing the delete, and then restarting the hostd services. If that doesn’t remove the lock, a host reboot should fix it. After the reboot, you will be able to delete the VMDK files as needed.

_________________

Dustin Pike

VMware Certified Professional (VI3 & vSphere)

http://virtualblocks.wordpress.com/