Snapshot / Remove

[Dreher]

friends,

I'm with problem space in datastore, I tried to delete but it took forever and I had to cancel, not solve the problem, I'm trying to consolidation but also is taking too long and do not have time, precise application is online. My question is: has the purge these snapshots manually? What impact can occur??

[a_p_]

The time required to delete snapshots depends on many things, like the number of snapshots, their sizes, the storage system, ...

To get an overview, please provide some details about the datastore (free space, local/shared storage, type of storage like SAS, SATA, write-cache) and a complete list of the VM's files, including names, sizes and time stamps.

André

[bayupw]

There is a KB article which explains about snapshots here: VMware KB:    Understanding virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESXi and ESX

The contributing factors on how long it is required to delete/consolidate a snapshot is listed here: VMware KB:    Estimating the time required to consolidate snapshots for VMware ESX and VMware ESXi

Could you afford downtime on the application?
Please note there is a difference when deleting a snapshot between a powered on VM vs powered off VM

VMware KB:    Delete all Snapshots and Consolidate Snapshots feature FAQ 

Note: If the virtual machine is powered off, no additional free space is required and the process will complete faster as there is no need track writes and the additional snapshot and delta file are not created as part of the process. 

There is also commands to monitor snapshot deletion: VMware KB:    Commands to monitor snapshot deletion in ESX 2.5/3.x/4.x and ESXi 3.x/4.x/5.x

Don't forget to follow the snapshot best practices: VMware KB:    Best practices for virtual machine snapshots in the VMware environment

Some of the important points to consider are:

- Snapshots are not backups

- Use no single snapshot for more than 24-72 hours

- An excessive number of delta files in a chain (caused by an excessive number of snapshots) or large delta files may cause decreased virtual machine and host performance.