Memory-performance issue on ESXI 5.5, Ballooning

[BVornefeld]

Hello,

We have an problem with memory balloning in an Windows 7 64-bit Guest running on VMware ESXi Version 5.5.0 Build 2302651.

VM settings:

After a few hours of usage the performance of the VM decreases and the VM becomes almost unresponsive.

Analysis: The esxi hosts claims 10 GB RAM for ballooning. The guest system is swapping.

The host is equipped with 128 GB RAM and running VMware ESXi Version 5.5.0 Build 2302651

Settings of the VM:

Memory of the VM is set to 16 GB

"Resource Allocation": no changes were made

"Shares": Normal

"Reservation": 0 MB

"Limit": 124902

Unlimited": checked

Any ideas?

Thanks

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

what's the overall memory consumption of the host? Is it heavily overcommitted?

Ballooning and other memory saving features should only come into effect if the host is low on physical memory, or if a resource pool runs out of resources..

André

[BVornefeld]

Thank you André.

Memory consumption of the host:

Granted Memory: 157526328 Kilobytes

Consumed: 130502736 Kilobytes

Ballon: 17617096 Kilobytes

The balloned memory was not automatically returned to the affected VM.

After restarting the "blocked" VM, balooned memory decreases in the host and the amount of granted memory increases.

In the meantime I found a difference in the installed version of VMware Tools.

Installed: VMwareTools 9.4.10, build-2068191

Available: VMwareTools 9.4.10, build-2092844

It was not indicated that the installed version was outdated.

I have updated the Tools for the affected VM and restarted the guest.

I'm not sure wether the endless ballooning was generated by the outdated Version of the tools or there is still another problem.

Bernhard

[BVornefeld]

Updating VMwareTools to 9.4.10, build-2092844 didn't solve the problem.

Memory is claimed by the balloon driver and not given back.