Insufficient disk space on datastore. Could not power on VM:No space left on device

[nbeslie]

Hi,

here is my problem. I have several virtual machines. But one of them can not be powered on because of the space problem. I can not add spaces because there is none to add.The data store has  only 760 mb left. There is summary information about the virtual machine below. I need to somehow power on this machine, but how can i do it. can i add some space from another datastore. Is there any files i can delete in the data store. Snapshot file is considerably big, can i diminish its size without affecting anything.

Thank you.

[schepp]

Hi,

you can't power it on because the size of your RAM will be written to disk when you start a VM.

So either shutdown another VM, delete some snapshots or migrate a VM to another datastore to free some space.

[vmclouds · Accepted solution]

There are multiple ways to tackle this

1. You can storage vmotion some of the VMs which are currently used and this will free up some space.

2. Check any snapshots which you do not want to use and delete those.

3. Reduce the memory of some other vms which are powered on so that swap space can be saved.

[nbeslie]

I reduced the ram sizes, but didnt work. even i close all other virtual machines it still gives same disk space error. As a last choice i will delete snapshots of some virtual machines on same datastore. But is there any other way. As far as i know if i delete a snapshot file, there is no way to bring it back. It is like cleaning the disk of the virtual machine. Am i wrong?

[schepp]

Hi,

having a snapshot means you write changes to a new virtual disk.

When you delete the snapshot, the snapshot-virtual-disk will be merged with the base-disk (or another snapshot disk, depending on how many snapshots you made).

You will not loose any data by deleting the snapshot, you will just loose the ability to go back to this specific state of the VM.

[vfk]

If you reserve the allocated memory, then no swap file is required and you should be able to power on your VM, if you are running on space.  Consider relocating the VM to another datastore.  You will need space to delete the snapshot.

[satishchirala]

Power on a virtual machine but there is not enough space to create a swap file on the VMFS volume

To change the default location:

Power off the virtual machine.

Add the following line to the VMX configuration file for the virtual machine:

workingDir=""

For example:

workingDir="/vmfs/volumes/46f1225f-552b0069-e03b-00145e808070/vm-snapshots"

To reload virtual machine configuration, run the command:

# vimsh -ne "vmsvc/reload "

When you power on the virtual machine, snapshot files and VSWP files are created in the new location.

Note: If you do not want to redirect the virtual machine’s swap file, add the following line to the VMX configuration file, then reload the configuration:

sched.swap.dir=""

When you power on the virtual machine, the swap file is created in the same directory as virtual machine.