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Styvboard
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Provisioned space and used space

So, got a couple of Machines with 2 disks 50 GB each. Used size in vSphere web client is 142 GB, snapshot at the moment so that number is ok, but provisioned space is 242 GB. I thought provisioned size was only bigger if I was using thin provisioning but we don't use that at all, and disks are only 50 GB  x 2 = 100 GB.

9 Replies
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Since each snapshot can grow up to the base virtual disk's provisioned size, it is counted with this disk size,.

André

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Styvboard
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Meaning that disks can grow to twice original size? 242 GB doesn't make any sense then? What's left on datastore isn't considered here?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Disk space on the datastore isn't considered for the provisioned size. The provisioned size is the maximum possible size for each .vmdk file, i.e. the size that you enter as the virtual disk size. For a 50GB virtual disk - no matter whether thin or thick - the provisioned size is 50GB. Once a snapshot is created, that snapshot could also grow up to the provisioned size, which results in 100GB provisioned space. That said, you can see that the provisioned size can possibly exceed the datastore size, which means that you have to be careful to not run out of disk space with thin provisioned virtual disks and/or active snapshots.

What also counts toward the provisioned space is e.g. the amount of memory assigned to the VM (a swapfile with this size is created once the VM is powered on).

André

Styvboard
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes, understand what you're saying. Checking a production machine with two 50 GB disks and 16 GB RAM, sums up to 116 GB, that's correct but servers in acceptence Environment that had snapshots that has been removed show 142 GB (should be 116GB as it's the same size on disks and RAM) and provisioned size says 242 GB. Messy

Is there a way to refresh these values? Can't really find it. Browsing files on datastore looks like 116 GB.

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Styvboard
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Looking at my initial post, 142 GB is ok, as there is a snapshot, but provisioned should then be 216 GB. Really makes no sense here.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Indeed strange. It would be interesting to see such a VM's files with their sizes, maybe this could give us a clue.

Remember to click the "Refresh Storage Usage" link in the Resources pane of the VM's Summary tab.

André

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joshopper
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Provisioned Storage is the space guaranteed to that VM by the datastore. This is the size of all VMDKs (if thin provisioned Used will be less than provisioned and if powered of used will not include the size of the RAM file) plus the actual size of snapshots (not the max size of the snapshot vmdk) plus vRam a file equal to the size of the memory of the virtual machine minus the amount of RAM reserved to that machine (if it has 16GB of RAM but you reserved 10GB RAM this file is 6GB in size).

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Styvboard
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hmmm, Refresh Storage Usage, you might just be pullin my leg here...can't find

Feels like something like this: VMware KB: Provisioned space may seem incorrect in vSphere client Inventory view of Virtual Machines

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

If you are using the classic (Windows based) vSphere Client, select the VM in the inventory, and click the Summary tab. On the top right there's a Resources pane which should have the mentioned link right above the displayed usage.

André