delete the content of a datastore

[alasdair_carnie]

Hi All,

I'm trying to access the datastore browser function to list and delete the content of a VMFS datastore. I don't want to try and delete the datastore asnd re-create it as I have found that this fails as often as it works and I need something a bit more reliable.

Can anyone help please.

Best Regards,

Alasdair...............

[LucD]

Why don't you use the datastore provider (vmstore) ?

You can do something like this

del -Recurse vmstore:\<datacenter\<datastore>

Just make sure you have the correct path to the datastore. It will depend on the folders and the datacenter you have to specify to get to the datastore

____________

Blog: LucD notes

Twitter: lucd22

[alasdair_carnie]

Hi Luc,

I've done the following

Connect-VIServer -Server inf-vc.qavdc.com -user blah -password blah

$dStore = Get-Datastore -Name Local01

New-PSDrive -Location $dStore -Name Data1 -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root '\'

del -Recurse Data1:\

This deletes the content of the datastore, however I get the following error.

Remove-Item : This operation is supported only on datastore item objects. The pecified path '\sc-server01.qavdc.com@443\ha-datacenter\Local01\' is not a valid datastore item path.

At line:1 char:4

+ del <<<< -Recurse ds1:

+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: ( , ViServerConn

ectionException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Core_VmStoreProviderCache_TryValidatePathElement

s_NotDatastoreItem,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

Can you enlighten me as to what this means and how to fix it?

Best regards,

Alasdair

[ykalchev]

Hi,

You cannot delete the datastore itself - you need to call delete on its content:

$dStore = Get-Datastore -Name Local01
New-PSDrive -Location $dStore -Name Data1 -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root '\'
del Data1:\* -Recurse 

Regards,

Yasen Kalchev

PowerCLI Dev Team

[alasdair_carnie]

Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

[ylevadoux]

Hello

Thanks for information.

This method can also be used to browse the content of VMFS datastores and make stuff in it (usefull in my infrstructure)

$dStore = Get-Datastore -Name Local01
New-PSDrive -Location $dStore -Name Data1 -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root '\'
get-childitem Data1: