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escapem2
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Storage growing without any reason

hi guys

ESX 3.5

yesterday I went to a customer since the storage for their VMs had left 20 MB... they had some issues I moved a VM to another datastore and we were OK.

all seemed that snapshots were the culprit but today they had the same issue VMs failing again and the same datastore had 800 MB left

so my question what could be causing this issue? what is growing without our permissio? VMDKs? logs?

what logs shoul I check? any known issue?

there are 4 datastore and it is only happening on one of them

thanks a lot

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a_p_
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Did you browse all the folders on the datastore to check for snapshots?

In 3.5 there was no thin provisioning (at least not officially supported) so snapshots are the only reasons left for a growing datastore (except for manually created folders, e.g. ISO repositories...)

André

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a_p_
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Did you browse all the folders on the datastore to check for snapshots?

In 3.5 there was no thin provisioning (at least not officially supported) so snapshots are the only reasons left for a growing datastore (except for manually created folders, e.g. ISO repositories...)

André

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escapem2
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Can a snapshot start growing just like that?

I mean for instance yesterday I created a snapshot result 3 GB three days later It can be 4 GB size???

that could be the only reason?

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a_p_
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That's not unusal, since the snapshot file stores all the changed data of the VM.

André

escapem2
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replying back to the snapshot stuff they told that they did not create any new snapshot.....

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a_p_
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Well, that's what I usually here from my customers too. "Nobody did nothing!"

Verify (or have them verify) in the datastore browser, they do not see any snapshot vmdk's.

André

a_p_
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I don't think your customer created a new VM, however did they probably power on a VM a previously powered off VM?

Powering on a VM will creates a couple of temp. files. One of these files is the VM's swap file which has the size of the assigned memory - reserved memory.

André

escapem2
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that's a good point....well yesterday when I left they had 25 GB but the only VM powered off was 4GB memory and they don't use reservations

thanks for your inputs

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petedr
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From reading through this is does sound like snapshots if you are talking about growth on a datastore ( vmfs ). There are some small logs files that are written to the VMs folder also but I won't expect large growth there unless something is not working properly. If it isn't snapshots you could check if any of the logs have grown significantly.

vmware.log

www.phdvirtual.com, makers of esXpress

www.thevirtualheadline.com www.liquidwarelabs.com
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escapem2
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these are the files on the VMs

nothing weird right?

something else guys

the datastore that is causing problems... when I got here (at customer site) showed me on Datastore 100.76 GB 3 hours later is 100.06 GB

size is increasing like 200 MB per hour...any idea what to check?

thanks a lot

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a_p_
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The file list shows snapshots (up to 7 !!

The 00000x.vmdk files are snapshot files. If they don't show up in the snapshot manager, you might need to create another snapshot and do a "Delete All" after that.

But be aware that "Delete All" for a VM with multiple snapshots needs a huge amount of disk space.

See Troubleshooting Virtual Machine snapshot problems

André

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MauroBonder
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you check a log size of each vm ?

you can check in folder of each vm.

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escapem2
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I found something weird and interesting at the same time.

there's a vmdk increasing size

SRVLN01-000002.vmdk

the point is If I go to Edit settings for that VM

it says that Hard Disk 2 is pointing to that vmdk...let's say datastore OperSystems/VMFolder/_SRVLN01-000002.vmdk_

but my customer says that's not correct since that Hard Disk 2 should point to another DataStore let's say EMAIL/VMFolder/_SRVLN01.vmdk_

in fact as I wrote the vmdk names are different

now for HD2 is OperSystems/VMFolder/SRVLN01-000002.vmdk and the real one should be EMAIL/VMFolder/SRVLN01.vmdk

and the nice thing is the linux OS is working OK and this file SRVLN01-000002.vmdk is the one that is growing

so looks like there is Virtual Hard Disk Pointing Issue where a vmdk that should not exist is growing...

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a_p_
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Please make sure you follow the link I provided above.

The vmdk files with the numbers are snapshot files and it is by design, that the VM's virtual HDDs point to the latest snapshot file.

To resolve the situation at your customer, you need to understand snapshots. And you should resolve the situation as soon as possible, because from the file list I saw in your attachment this could become a serious disk space issue.

André

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escapem2
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well yeah a.p. you got me I have not read that article.....

but my questions would be

1. If hard disk 1 original vmdk is at /OperaSystem/VMfolder/VM1.vmdk and second hard drive is at /EMAIL/VMfolder/SecondDH2.vmdk why the snapshot is at the same location at the Hard Disk1 - vmdk 1 - ?

2. and second why a snapshot is incrreasing size? now is at almost 13GB....

In that case you mean we should remove all snapshots and that should fix the issue?

thanks a lot

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a_p_
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1. If hard disk 1 original vmdk is at /OperaSystem/VMfolder/VM1.vmdk and second hard drive is at /EMAIL/VMfolder/SecondDH2.vmdk why the snapshot is at the same location at the Hard Disk1 - vmdk 1 - ?

Snapshots for a VM are always created in the VM's base folder (the folder with the VMX file). It does not matter on which datastores the virtual disk is created.

2. and second why a snapshot is increasing size? now is at almost 13GB....

When you create a snapshot, the base disk (or parent disk if multiple snapshots exist) is used in read only mode. All changes are written to the snapshot file. That's why it grows (up to the size of the base disk!).

André

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escapem2
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I forgot to add my questions mmight be too dump but since there are others VM having snaphosts but those 00000xx-vmdk are not increasing their size...

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escapem2
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for number 2. got it so If i delete those snapshots those new changes that were written to my snaphost are going to be written to the original virtual disk at EMAIL/VMFolder/Vm.....vmdk

got it that in some way explains why that file is growing that size..... still weird wy others are not increasing

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a_p_
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Only the snapshot file for the latest snapshot taken for each of the VM's virtual HDD's grow in size.

This latest snapshot file is the one displayed when you view the HDD's in the VM's settings.

André

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escapem2
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thanks a lot a.p

yeah I was thinking in a different way about snaopshots

these are all the helpful articles that helped a lot

Troubleshooting Virtual Machine snapshot problems

http://geosub.es/vmutils/Troubleshooting.Virtual.Machine.snapshot.problems/Troubleshooting.Virtual.M...

Understanding virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESX

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101518...

Consolidating snapshots

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1007849&sl...

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