VMware Cloud Community
digitalbath
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

VMs deployed on VSAN without storage policy selected with THICK disk

Hi,

We had an admin build 50 VMs on our VSAN datastore but didn't choose the VSAN storage policy so it got the default which lets you have THICK provisioned disks

I've chnaged one of the VMs to use the VSAN storage policy (which uses thin) but the VM is still using all the space

Is there a way to make the VMs reclaim the whitespace now they have a VSAN storage policy ?

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
CHogan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee
Jump to solution

Yes - I'd have to agree with Duncan. I don't think there is a way to revert/shrink the size.

One idea is, if you have additional storage, to Storage vMotion the VM to NFS or VMFS, converting it to thin, and then bring it back to VSAN with a policy that does not have "thickness".

Try it with one VM - see if it works.

A bit of a drag I know, but I can't think of any other way offhand.

HTH

Cormac

http://cormachogan.com

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
4 Replies
depping
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

Afaik you cannot reverse this behaviour. It is deployed with "100% space reservation" at the moment.

VSAN Part 24 – Why is VSAN deploying thick disks? | CormacHogan.com

PS: will test it in my lab for you, if I find out how I will let you know.

Reply
0 Kudos
CHogan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee
Jump to solution

Yes - I'd have to agree with Duncan. I don't think there is a way to revert/shrink the size.

One idea is, if you have additional storage, to Storage vMotion the VM to NFS or VMFS, converting it to thin, and then bring it back to VSAN with a policy that does not have "thickness".

Try it with one VM - see if it works.

A bit of a drag I know, but I can't think of any other way offhand.

HTH

Cormac

http://cormachogan.com
Reply
0 Kudos
digitalbath
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Hi guys,

Thanks for the quick replies. Love the VMware community

Cormac - I suspected the only way would be the ol storage motion trick

I just moved one VM over to a FC VMFS LUN and back and got my whitespace back

Now for the other 49.... I would make the admin who did it do it but we are paying them a high hourly rate! haha

Need to get a work experience kid :smileygrin:

Thanks guys

Reply
0 Kudos
CHogan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee
Jump to solution

The good news is that we will have real default policies in VSAN 6.0, so this will prevent this sort of behaviour in future - doesn't really help you now though 😕

http://cormachogan.com
Reply
0 Kudos