Out of space - what are my options

[huwy]

Hi there,

we have 1 VM machine running off local storage on a ESX4 box.

We are getting a SAN in the next couple of weeks so the storage issue will be resolved but I need to keep this server running until then.

The problem is that the ESX server is running out of space on local storage and the VM is dying. I have attached screen shots of the setup.

If the vm disk is thin provisioned then how come the vmdk file is so large?

Can anyone suggest the best course of action to stop the VM from dying until the new storage arrives?

Thanks a lot,

Huw

[Anders_Gregerse]

You could reduce the size of the virtual disk to something smaller than 120Gb which is possible in your Windows 2008 guest. Resize the disk in the guest first and then change the disksize in esx. Try it first with another vm to have a written and tested procedure.

Thin provisioning only starts out thin, if the guest os writes to all the disk blocks it will be at it's full size. I've also seen it if a non standard block size is used (which I normally use for SQL Server).

[SebastiaNet]

use VMware Converter

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[AndreTheGiant]

If the vm disk is thin provisioned then how come the vmdk file is so large?

The big problem is that thin provisioning works at block level (cause is a VMFS feature).

But guest OS do not free the blocks when you delete some file.

In Windows you can use sdelete to clean also the blocks.

Andre