VM Snapshots caused storage to fill and files are now stuck in sesparse format

[VMnewbie104]

Background: I only had minimal training on VM before going through with these steps.

I am using a vSphere and had a Data server that had 4 snapshots (over ~2 years) that it had been running on. Our server had filled its space up entirely and therefore the server crashed. The DATA data store was based on a local collection of drives (around 3TB in a raid 50) so this was not able to be expanded any further. I was able to clear another raid away and create around 7TBs of space to perform a copy to the new data store. Unfortunately the snapshots expanded themselves while performing the copy to the new data store. This resulted in multiple DATAServer_Flat.vmdk files and corresponding DATAServer_000001.vmdk-sesparse (Don't have the exact name and format in front of me). We now have a new Unity storage system with all of the snapshot vmdks and corresponding sesparse files in one location. We started the DATA server and it appears the data is only from ~3 years ago (same time as the original snapshot). I'm assuming that we need to some how merge the flat files and sesparse files back into one. I'm not sure how to do that since the copying process failed during and created these split files. Any advice or is the data inside of those VMDKs gone?

[continuum]

Stop using the VM NOW !

You are using the VMDK with the basedisk alone - running that for an extended time will destroy your chance of restoring the original state.

Post a list of files you have now - make sure you include full names and size. (use ls  -lisa  to create the filelist)

[VMnewbie104]

So there are two datastores. These are all the files i can see that relate to the server.

The C:\ Drive is on one and the files are below:

- Blank Server_1.vmdk(530)

- Blank Server_1-flat.vmdk(220.6GB)

-Blank Server.vmdk(527)

-Blank Server-flat.vmdk(527)

-Blank Server-000001.vmdk(328)

-Blank Server-000001-delta.vmdk(16GB)

-Blank Server-000002.vmdk(335)

-Blank Server-000002-delta.vmdk(33.5GB)

-Blank Server-000003.vmdk(335)

-Blank Server-000003-delta.vmdk(57.5GB)

-Blank Server-000004.vmdk(362)

-Blank Server-000004-delta.vmdk(128.9GB)

Blank Server-Snapshot4.vmsn(4GB)

Blank Server.vmxf(4.3K)

Data Datastore:

-DATA_1-flat.vmdk (3.0TB)

-DATA_1-000001.vmdk(332)

-DATA_1-000001-sesparse.vmdk(220.6GB)

-DATA_1-000002.vmdk(339)

-DATA_1-000002-sesparse.vmdk(1.8TB)

-DATA_1-000003.vmdk(339)

-DATA_1-000003-sesparse.vmdk(117GB)

-DATA_1-000004.vmdk(366)

-DATA_1-000004-sesparse.vmdk(684.9GB)

-DATA_1.vmdk(497)