Stuck in Snapshots

[bernd2nd]

Today a customer logged an issue regarding to snapshots and out of disk space.

As a brave support engineer i called the customer and initiated a Webex.

The outcoming was worse.

The 1.8TB VMFS datastore was filled up to 100% and the affected VM had 3x250GB disks, 1x110GB disk and 1x10GB disk attached with several delta files.

No VirtualCenter.

I advised this:

- power down the VM

- Read kb article 1002310

- Two options to go: try to remove the snapshots or try to clone the virtual disks using vmkfstools.

- Requisite: Both options will take a lot of free disk space.

- Read the Troubleshooting VMware Snapshots article from Eric Siebert. http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid179_gci1313833,00.html

Any other suggestions?

[VMKR9]

Are there any other virtual machines on the datastore that could be migrated instead of this stuck one? it would be easier to free up space from other vms than risk moving the stuck vm

[bernd2nd]

Yes, there are four vms on the datastore. Good point, i will check this if we will have some free disk space.

Why do you think it is risky to move the stuck vm? We will try to clone the virtual disk files with vmkfstools -i to another datastore.

Right now the customer has to add some free disk space.

If the customer can't get extra disk space theres is no go.