Recover space on a vmdk after deleting windows files

[valot]

Hi all,

I'm trying to Recover space on a vmdk after deleting windows files without success.

I tried datavmotion, vmkfstools et son on..

My configuration is vCenter 6.5 with cluster (2 ESXs 5.5), vmdk are "thin", windows server 2012 R2.

I deleted few windows files on a data disk and impossbile to recover the space used on vmdk.

.

Any helps or ideas ?

[Nawals]

As I understand you delete the files from windows machine after still you not see the release space. I thing you need to run unmap command to claim the space. Follow below KB will help you.

VMware Knowledge Base

[valot]

That's exactly my issue

Thanks for the idea

I tried the both followinbg article without success

VMware Knowledge Base

VMware Knowledge Base

.

More idea ? 🙂

[Nawals]

You can do storage vMotion to claim the space.

[ryanrpatel]

I have some storage reclaim scripts in my GitHub repo. Goto the VMware folder and look for the reclaim*** scripts.
GitHub - vNinjaDFW/Scripts

[Lalegre]

Hey Valot,

Try to use the UNMAP function as this KB says: VMware Knowledge Base

Another option could be to Storage vMotion the virtual machine between datastores as mentioned on the comments above.

[IRIX201110141]

The OP speaks about Windows files which i think referrers to In Guest. So, to get scsi unmap working from inside the GuestOS trough the ESXi certain requirement are needed and the OP failed there because of ESXi 5.5. (6.0 is the minimum). Even than a couple of other settings are needed.

Take a look to Space Reclamation Requests from Guest Operating Systems

Regards,
Joerg

[valot]

Hi all

Thanks for all your answers, to resume

Storage VMotion = already tried = no success

UNMAP = 6.0 is the minimum required

For information, at this time, only the converter claim the unsued space, but for me it's not a reral solution, but it worked.

Tks for all