Take Snapshot not avaiable

[Sean_Cottrell]

Hello,

I have two VMs that when I right-click on them in VC and navigate to the Snapshot option, the Take Snapshot option is greyed out. These VMs were migrated from a ESX 2.5 world. They both have RDM drives attached.

My current environment is ESX 3.01. and VC 2.0.1.

Any thoughts?

[kix1979]

Are you running the RDM's as physical RDMs? Also did you upgrade the Virtual Hardware after you migrated the VM? It has to be on VI3 compliant virtual hardware to allow snapshots.

[lbourque]

From Basic System Administration Guide:

NOTE Snapshots of raw disks, RDM physical mode disks, or independent disks are not supported.[/b]

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_301_201_admin_guide.pdf

[admin]

It'll be one of the two things above, either you haven't updraged the virtual hardware to ESX3 format (power off VM -> right click -> upgrade virtual hardware) or your RDM is not in virtual compatibility mode.

[Sean_Cottrell]

Thanks eveyone for your replies.

[i]Are you running the RDM's as physical RDMs?[/i][/b]

The two VMs each have 3 hard drives. C: is a VMDK and D:/E: are Mapped Lun RDMs. I checked one of the VMs and the RDMs are set to Physical Mode.

[i]It'll be one of the two things above, either you haven't updraged the virtual hardware to ESX3 format (power off VM -> right click -> upgrade virtual hardware)[/i]

"I believe" I performed this action on all of VMs when I migrated to 3.x. However, this option is no longer available in 3.0.1 (I read it on the forums somewhare)

[b]NOTE Snapshots of raw disks, RDM physical mode disks, or independent disks are not supported.[/b][/i]

I am only looking to make a snapshot of the C: of the VMs which is a VMDK. (Eventually, I will be using esxRanger 3.x to backup up the C: Drive as well.)

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At this point, I will try and shutdown the VM and change the RDMs to Virtual. Any concerns I should have with changing a RDM from Physical to Virtual mode?

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Message was edited by:

Sean Cottrell

[bigvee]

I might also be a permission issue... verify your account has a role with the ability to take snapshots.....

[Sean_Cottrell]

It does. I can snapshot any of the other 65 VMs I have.

[minerat]

Any luck? I'm having the same issue.

[Rumple]

When I had that last it was because the disks were in independant mode (probably from the migration from ESX 2.5) as I had not configured them manually.

[Sean_Cottrell]

I will be switching modes on my RDM disks this coming weekend. Please see this post for more information.

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=81326&messageID=627360#627360

After this weekend, I will post my results here.

[murreyaw]

Check the VMDK settings for the first disk. Be sure that it isn't set to independant.

[Sean_Cottrell]

Well, after the weekend, the Take Snapshot option is available in Virtual Center. Howe ever the backup software I am currently using: esxRanger, fails to perform a snapshot/backup. The tech support is indicating that I have to change the Mapped Raw LUN (RDM) settings to the following:

Compatibility Mode = Virtual (This is done)

Mode = Independent

Unfortunately, you can not change these settings while the VM is running. So, again, this weekend, I will be making the change to Independent and then retest esxRanger snapshot/backups.

[murreyaw]

That should do it for you. Just realize that you won't get a backup of the RDM devices in your snapshot.

[Sean_Cottrell]

That should do it for you. Just realize that you

won't get a backup of the RDM devices in your

snapshot.

That's perfect. The other RDM total over 2 Tb! And are handled by other backup solutions. The whole goal is to make snapshot/backup of on the first VMDK, i.e. the C: drive of the server.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback, cross your fingers and we will see how the weekend goes

Sean

[murreyaw]

you could also use vmkfstools -i to make copies of the vmdk, I don't know if it works with the vm running though.

[Chromeronin]

Was there a resolution to this issue? I'm seeing the same things with my VM environment.

I created a guest from template, backed up with esxranger OK. Added Raw disk, backup fails with error unable to snapshot, hardware may need to be upgraded. Detached and reattached disk as virtual disk in independant mode, backup fails with target archive corrupt. (this happens if I select jus tthe disk on VMFS or both the attached disk and VMFS disk.)

If I detach the disk, the backup completes OK.

Very frustrating, as I have a couple of important VMS with large attached raw disks I don't have space for on VMFS anymore.

[lbourque]

Is the RDM compatibility set to virtual or physical mode? If it's in virtual mode, you should be able to do a snapshot. If, however, it's in physical mode, you cannot. It's not supported.

See page 131 of the Basic System Administration Guide:

[Chromeronin]

Virtual Mode - disk in independant mode. Backup fails with the error target archive invalid.

"The Archive Created Appears to be Invalid! Read Size:1082, Calced Size 3221522432"

The guest backup fine if the disk is detached.