msg.hbacommon.outofspace:There is no more space for virtual disk server_1-000008.vmdk. You may be able to continue this session by freeing disk space on the relevant partition, and clicking Retry

[kenp55]

Hello,

I have seen various threads on this topic but have not found a resolution or explanation that fits my exact scenario.

I have an ESXi 4 server connected to a SAN (700GB) with 1 virtual machine on it (Exchange 2010).   The virtual machine I created has 4 disks, 50GB for the OS, 2 240GB disks for databases and 1 100GB disk for logs.  In the OS, each partition shows that I have plenty of space.  Last night, I'm moving over mailboxes from our Exchange 2003 server when suddenly I get this error message and the server shuts down:

msg.hbacommon.outofspace:There is no more space for virtual disk server_1-000008.vmdk.  You may be able to continue this session by freeing disk space on the relevant partition, and clicking Retry.  Otherwise, click Abort to terminate this session.  Retry / Stop

Retry reproduces the error.. Stop shuts down the vm.

After I stop, I look In the vsphere client under Hardware > Storage > SAN where the disk is, and I find that I am out of space.

Now, I did create several snapshots that I could fall back on from when I was doing the initial configuration of exchange.  I deleted a lot of those and got back up to about 50GB free space showing on the SAN.  However, that number is slowly shrinking.

Now, when I created the virtual machine, I configured the virtual disks to be a certain size already (50GB, 240GB, etc).  How is it that adding data (the mailbox moves) are using up more space than what is already allocated to the virtual disks?  This is going to become a huge problem as I have several more mailboxes to move and I thought I had already allocated the space I needed.

Why is it that when the server is just sitting there.  The available free space is shrinking?  Does it have something to do with the type of disk I created? (Thick)

Could someone please explain why this is happening and, more importantly, how I can stop this without having to do anything too drastic?

[vmroyale · Accepted solution]

Hello.

"I have an ESXi 4 server connected to a SAN (700GB) with 1 virtual machine on it (Exchange 2010).   The virtual machine I created has 4 disks, 50GB for the OS, 2 240GB disks for databases and 1 100GB disk for logs.  In the OS, each partition shows that I have plenty of space."

You have created 630GB worth of thick disks on a 700GB datastore.  The thick disks use this allocated space, regardless of what the OS has done with them in terms of usage. So 630GB thick = 630GB used space on the datastore.

"Last night, I'm moving over mailboxes from our Exchange 2003 server when suddenly I get this error message and the server shuts down:
msg.hbacommon.outofspace:There is no more space for virtual disk server_1-000008.vmdk.  You may be able to continue this session by freeing disk space on the relevant partition, and clicking Retry.  Otherwise, click Abort to terminate this session.  Retry / Stop
After I stop, I look In the vsphere client under Hardware > Storage > SAN where the disk is, and I find that I am out of space."

You still have snapshots (as you also mentioned) on this VM as well.  With only 70GB of free space left on the datastore, the snapshots are defintely going to be capable of filling up the volume in short order.

"Now, when I created the virtual machine, I configured the virtual disks to be a certain size already (50GB, 240GB, etc).  How is it that adding data (the mailbox moves) are using up more space than what is already allocated to the virtual disks?"

When you create the snapshot, a new disk gets created that will get all of the new disk writes.  So copying a lot of mailboxes is going to use up a lot of space quickly.

"Why is it that when the server is just sitting there.  The available free space is shrinking?  Does it have something to do with the type of disk I created? (Thick)"

Thick is using the space, and converting to thin disks might help to varying degrees- depending on the amount of writes.  It is mostly the snapshots causing the problem, or at least this is where you could focus your attention of fixing this.

"Could someone please explain why this is happening and, more importantly, how I can stop this without having to do anything too drastic?"

Removing the snapshots and/or moving this VM to a larger datastore would be the two easiest fixes.

Good Luck!

[kenp55]

Thank you for your reply.  Very helpful.  So, I have one snapshot remaining (see screenshot).  Am I safe to delete that and have no snapshots.  Will that free up a significant amount of space for me?  I know I need to do a bit more reading on snapshots, but I've seen something about "committing" snapshots.  If I delete this snapshot and have no snapshots at all, I'm not going to be stuck in some kind of state where I can't restart the virtual machine or have an incomplete disk, am I?

[vmroyale]

You are certainly free to delete this snapshot and have no snapshots on the VM.

The amount of space this snapshot will free up depends entirely on how large the snapshot currently is.  You can check the size of the snapshot using the datastore browser in the vSphere client.

Deleting the snapshot will "commit" the current state of the machine.  So long as the snapshot deletion completes successfully and your current state of the VM is stable, then there will be no issues with incomplete disks or anything like that.  It will be the same process as the other snapshots you already deleted basically.

There is really good information available in both http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007849 and http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015180 that you might want to review before continuting.  If you are truly worried about the possibility of losing data, then there is no substitute for having a recent backup available, before you commit the last snapshot.

[continuum]

next time you see this DO NOT ANSWER

instead free up some space first - if  you answer before free space is available chances are high that the last snapshot gets corrupted.

[kenp55]

Thanks for the heads up.  Unfortunately, I did answer.  Retry and then Stop.  I deleted the last remaining snapshot and freed up another 50GB.  The disk now doesn't have the -00008 at the end which I believe means that the disk is no longer running off of a snapshot.

So far things seem to be running fine.  I'm worried that if I shut down and try to start it up again, I'm going to have problems with the disk.  Is that a valid concern?  Should I create another snapshot to fall back on?  Would that make a difference if the previous one I deleted became corrupted?