Can I preserve storage space on my host by saving virtual machine snapshots to external devices?

[focaccio]

Hello,

I am wondering: Is there is a way to preserve storage space on a host system by saving virtual machine snapshots to an external device or local machine?

When I look at the Summary tab for my host within the VMware Infrastructure Client (VIC) and double-click the datastore I get a window showing the details of the datastore. At the top of that window is an icon for uploading files from local machine to datastore, but the icon that looks like it would be for downloading files from datastore to local machine is greyed-out. If I want to manually move snapshots to archival storage not located on the host then what files need to be included?

Is there a configuration setting to change so that snapshots are not saved to the host datastore?

Regards,

Greg

[mmathurakani]

As far as i know, there is no such configuration change that lets you save the snapshot files to an external device.

The snapshot files of a particular virtual machine are created in the same folder that contains the vmx file of the virtual

machine.I dont think you can change this setting.

Further why would you ever want to move your snapshot files to an external storage at all in the first place? Because the virtual

machine would be running off the snapshot files and if you just go ahead and move the snapshot files the virtual machine is

bound to crash. Instead, if you really want to save the disk space on the datastore you must plan taking the snapshots and not

take too many snapshots as these snapshot files just keep growing and can grow upto the size of the base vmdk flat file.

Take snapshots only if they are really necessary as in cases where u want to test patches or softwares and delete/commit or revert back the snapshots

as soon as your testing is done. Keeping large number of snapshots not only eats disk space but could also result in virtual

machine crashes while commiting/deleting large snapshot files.

[FredWilliams]

I agree.

Perhaps use the Data Recovery plugin it may be more suitable, as that gives the option to save to another data store and basically does a full backup, and then after that uses snapshots when you backup a VM?

Fred

[focaccio]

Thanks for the information mmathurakani. Since I'm new to VMware I was mistaking snapshots for backups. With a bit of research I found that what I need to do to accomplish my goal of backing up my VMs to storage not located on the host server is to use the method that incorporates the ghettoVCB script found here:

[focaccio]

Hi Fred. Thanks for pointing me to the Data Recovery plugin, I'll have to check it out to see how it compares to the backup system I will be exploring that uses the ghettoVCB script.

[focaccio]

Since I am still a novice here, I was confusing snapshots and backups. What I need to do is save VM backups to storage external to the host server. I am going to be exploring the ghettoVCB script method as well as Backup plugins.