snapshot questions

[rmitchell9]

I have a few questions pertaining to snapshots

1.when a snapshot is made is it as big as the VM?

2. if you do not have space for a snapshot on the same datastore can it be saved on a different one?

If there are any links to tips pertaining to snapshot would someone let me know that as well

thank you very much!

Rick

[jmcdonald1]

Hi Rick,

1 - No. The snapshot will grow as changes are made to the VM.

2 - This cannot be done from the GUI interface. It can be manually changed in the VM config file, but I do not recommend doing this.

As for documentation, the system admin guide describes these in detail in ch16 (pg249):

Personally I never recommend leaving snapshots on a Standard VM for an extended period of time. This is becuase the larger the snapshot grows, the bigger the performance hit you will see both in the VM, and the length of time to commit the snapshot.

Cheers,

/Jon

[rmitchell9]

thank you

[petedr]

The method to change the snapshot location if you wanted to do it is to add the workingDir to the vmx file

example :

workingDir = "/vmfs/volumes/........./ "

[vmware64]

And the workingDir is the ONLY available method to re-direct a snapshot? I have an ESX server with limited space ... I have enough room on my 2nd VMFS store that can hold the snapshot file - the problem is the other files that are placed in the "workingDir" cause the ESX server to run out of space. How can I re-located ONLY the snapshot files? Is it not possible?

Thanks!