Snap Shots

[Jim_Hammond]

Hi Folks,

I usually take a snapshot each day as a means of backup. Lately the "deleting files portion is taking longer and longer. Today it took almost 5 minutes to complete. Isn't this quite long?

Jim

[BP9906]

Are you saying that you discard and re-make a snapshot each day?

Have you tried discarding the snapshot, doing a defrag (vmwarev-diskmanager -d) and then remake the snapshot to see if the following day its faster?

Just curious if that would work since my impression is that snapshots only add to the VMDK being defragmented.

[WoodyZ]

Have a look at the following post:

Why does discarding a snapshot take so long? http://communities.vmware.com/message/785918

[Jim_Hammond]

Woody,

Thanks, I had not seen that post. So if I understand correctly, then each time I add to my orginal vmdk, by adding programs or files to my VM, then its going to take longer to discard or delete, is that right?

Jim

[WoodyZ]

Yes, that's correct.

[Jim_Hammond]

Ok, thanks. So to understand further if I discard my snapshot before I make a new one that is not the correct way to do it, right? I should just make the snapshot by creating and letting the delete process go forward.

Jim

[admin]

Hmm, I'm not sure. Once you discard a snapshot and take a new one, your delta disk starts small again. Unless you've been writing successively more data each time before discarding the snapshot, I would not expect the required time to grow. Perhaps your disk is becoming fragmented?

[Jim_Hammond]

Ok, can you tell what commands do I use to defragment the disk and which file is my disk. Sorry for the basic question, but I'm new to this sort of thing. I can try that and see what happens then.

Jim

[Jim_Hammond]

Can someone give me an answer to my last post please.

Jim