ESXi

I removed a disk from via VM's edit settings but forgot to delete the disk from the datastore. I have attached the listing and the 2 .vmdk contents. Since the vdisks were the same size, I am trying to be careful (in seldomly frequented waters) and not remove the wrong one. Would appreciate a second opinion(s).

Lou

Attachment(s)

esxivdisk.zip   847 B 1 version

-rw-------    1 root     root      100.0G Jan 25 13:41 Exchange-flat.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root         471 Jan 25 13:45 Exchange.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root        6.3M Feb  3 13:28 Exchange_1-000001-ctk.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root      560.2M Feb  3 13:30 Exchange_1-000001-delta.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root         393 Feb  3 13:27 Exchange_1-000001.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root        6.3M Jan 30 15:01 Exchange_1-ctk.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root      100.0G Jan 30 15:01 Exchange_1-flat.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root         535 Jan 30 14:58 Exchange_1.vmdk

It seems that the file exchange_1 is the current one, and Exchange is orphaned

* Exchange-flat.vmdk hasnt been used since Jan 25

* Exchange_1 was modifiled Jan 30 and you have a snapshot on that machine, thats why you have these files, Exchange_1-000001-ctk.vmdk,Exchange_1-000001-delta.vmdk,Exchange_1-000001.vmdk.

Thank you.

Light bulb lights...... there is no snapshot in the machine, that has to be the result of a failed Veeam backup.

Will back  things up and delete them.

Lou

Are you positive it was a result of backup job? I'm wondering because typically the leftover snapshots should be deleted during next job cycle. If you're on version 8, there is even Snapshot Hunter functionality that looks for such snapshots and merges them in automatic fashion.

Cheers.

According to Snapshot manager, there are (were) no snapshots. Doing another Veeam backup, will check again then.

Thanks,

Lou

We have been having similar issue.   We opened a case with both Veeam & VMware.  Veeam said they just issue an API call and the rest is handled by VMware.  VMware support asked me to take a snapshot and then go to Delete All from snapshot.  It goes away but then issue will reoccur after the next backup is run.

We also noticed the snapshot removal is painfully long (over 6 hours).

ESXi 5.5

Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010

Veeam 7 patch 4.

TT

As mentioned above, it might be worth updating to version 8, since it has functionality that should take care of orphaned snapshots in automatic fashion.

From what I read/spoke to suppor (snapshot huntert, its still a process that Veeam hands to VMware to remove the process. 

TT

Just to be sure... I plan to remove the exchange and the -000001 files (since there is no snapshot to remove).

Correct?

Thanks again,

Lou.