hi,
with a administrator role account:
SOAP Fault:
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Fault string: The vSphere HA agent on host 'esxxxx.domain.tld failed to quiesce file activity on datastore '/vmfs/volumes/2352de7a-a4778453'. To proceed with the operation to unmount or remove a datastore, ensure that the datastore is accessible, the host is reachable and its vSphere HA agent is running.
Fault detail: QuiesceDatastoreIOForHAFailedFault
I cannot remove them using the vcenter gui either, so it appears the permissions message is a bit bogus.
O well, I'll write a script to create a local role, add a local user to that role and remove the datastore per esx host. A bit more work but thanks to this nice api quite doable.