Reclaim space on thick provisioning vm disk

[SotirB]

HI, 

I have file server with thick provisioning disk. I delete some files and free space on guest OS.

On the VM  disk free space has not change.

How can i reclaim free space on thick provisioning vmdk

Thanks

[maksym007]

Depends on which Datastore type and version are you using. NFS or VMFS.

In the case of VMFS 6 it will be done automatically. 

With NFS I do not remember actually. 

[fabio1975]

Ciao 

If I understand the question correctly you need to free up the disk space in the datastore.

The thick format does not allow for the possibility of having only the space actually occupied on the VM by the OS and the data allocated to the datastore. You need to convert the disk (or all disks of the VM) to THIN format.

To do this you have to follow this KB (in the second part of the KB):
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2014832

Be aware that if you have many THIN disks you must monitor the size of the disks and the space occupied on the datastore. it is very easy to overcommit occupied space