Snapshot run out of space

[Joe51]

If I snapshot a server and it fills up my datastore will it just fail?  What problems will it cause?

Thanks

[a_p_]

Not easy to say. If the datastore fills up this may also cause issue with other VM's which are using thin provisioned virtual disks or having active snapshots too. Since the guest OS actually is not aware of the issue this could lead to unpredictable situations. However, if required disk space runs is not available the Hypervisor will usually pause the VMs, so this may only cause an outage but not really harm the VMs.

André

[nielse]

I suggest you take a look at this KB: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100341...

Snapshot creation/commit: When a snapshot is taken or  committed to the virtual machine, data is written to the VMFS. If the  VMFS is unable to accommodate the additional data, the snapshot does not  grow, does not get written, or is not committed. As a result,the  virtual machine may fail.