DIsk consolidation vs deleting snapshots

[zewar]

Hello everyone am new here,

     just want to say that i just made a catastrophe ,i deleted snapshots then consolidated the disk thinking that's just gonna clear my snapshots ,now month of data got erased just like that ,i'am devistated and probably gonna be fired ,anyone can help?

[a_p_]

Please explain - as detailed as possible - what exactly you did so far.

Btw: If this is a production VM, don't you have backups?

André

Moderator note: I've branched your question from a reply to an old discussion to a new one.

[Lalegre]

Hey @zewar,

But deleting the snapshots is consolidating all your data written into the VMDKs of the virtual machine so you are not losing any information at all. The only thing you are losing is the ability to go back in time when the snapshot was taken.

I mean you can connect inside and validate that everything is there.

[bryanvaneeden]

@zewar Your explanation seems strange, or missing parts.

The difference between the two options are the following:

• Deleting snapshots
  • When deleting snapshots you are removing the snapshot from the snapshot tree and merging the data written to child delta disk files to the virtual machines base disk.
• Consolidating snapshots
  • When consolidating snapshots you are removing redundant delta disk files which are leftovers from failed snapshot revert, delete, or delete all operations.

Either way, you cannot lose any data and go back in time, unless you inadvertently choose "Revert" snapshot while trying to delete them. Or you are using independent non-persistent disks on the virtual machine.