Lingering vmsn files

[bcattz]

I am new to VM and the community, so I apologize if I am posting in the wrong area.  We have a Virtual Machine that has 4 vmsn files in the datastore.  It is my understanding that these files are supposed to delete when a snapshot is deleted, but they did not.  Can I just delete these from the datastore manually?

Also, we attempted to take another snapshot to see if we could delete it and clear up the files, but we received the following message.

Create virtual machine snapshot
File <unspecified
filename> is larger
than the maximum
size supported by
datastore
'<unspecified
datastore>

From Vsphere's perspective, the VM is running low on space, but the OS level shows plenty.  What is the best way to reclaim this space in VSphere?  We are running 4.0.

[Hoschi201110141 · Accepted solution]

I sugest not to delete these Files manualy..

If your Datastore is nearly full it can happen that it is not possible to delete or apply snapshots to a VMguest.

You have different methods to drive around..

- Free some space ... maybe move other VMguest away from this LUN

- Extend the Datastore

- Backup - Delete - Restore the VMguest

Then try to delete or apply the Snapshots as necesary.

[smithandwesson]

I am curious about those files too.  We have a vm that has large 2046GB vmdk files and we cannot snapshot them because the vmdk files are too large and we get the same error you listed above.  I found this link (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101238...) that explains the vmdk size limits for drives that you might want to snapshot at some point. We ran into the problem when we tried to use Backup Exec 2010 R2 to do vmware image backups (whole virtual servers).  From my testing, we found that even if the datastore has space available, it is still a limit within the vmdk file itself.  I was able to recreate the problem with smaller 256GB drives too.  If the VM had a 256GB drive, no snapshots would work on that server (it also had a 60GB and a 250GB drive).  Once I deleted the 256GB drive and made a 254GB drive, snapshot worked fine!  Also, your block size on the datastore where your OS drive resides (usually the first drive you made for the VM) needs to be the same as the block size for other datastores your VM uses.  The link above describes the situation pretty well.  Hope this helps...  BTW, there is no "easy" way to shrink a vmdk files form what I have found.  We have created new 2000GB vmdk files on new datastores on our SAN and are using robocopy to move files over...

[bcattz]

smithandwesson, thanks for the info!!  As far as shrinking vmdk files, we have successfully done this on a test VM by using the VMware converter.  I beleive that the converter is typically used for physical to virtual conversions, however, you can use it for virtual to vrtual and change the size of the disk.  Of course you will still need to server up a new storage LUN, but other than that the conversion is smooth.  We are hoping to perform this on a one of our "less important" production servers soon to see how things go.

Thanks  

[smithandwesson]

Yeah, we tried the converter, but it does not like 2TB drives.  I tried to change the 2046GB drive to 2000GB and it said "cannot be larger than 999GB" so it seems that the converter as it's own limit...  hope the other info helps you!