VMware Cloud Community
GFFG
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Virtual Machine has multiple VDMK files - wondering why

Hi guys,

I have a single large 100 GB Windows 2003 R2 Oracle DB Virtual Machine[ name = mis ]. All has been fine for years. For the last 3 months we've been using SMVI to snap the NFS volume and all was well. Then for some reason we started running out of space and having to increase the NFS volume by almost 100 GB. Upon further inspection I notice that this VM has for some reason spawned some new files in the VM'S FOLDER...

My question is:

How do I get rid of these additional VDMK files( 00001 and 0002 ), one is is 86 GB , how the heck did this happen?

I have removed at stuck VMWARE snapshot which took ages !!!

Here is a overview of the files in the VM's directory:

mis.vmx

mis.vmsd

mis.nvram

vmware.log ( also logs 90,91,92,93,94 ) all about 50kb

mis-snapshot222.vmsn

mis-vmxf

mis-25d0109e.hlog

mis-25d0109e.vswp ( 1gb )

mis.vmdk - 105,63600 KB

mis-000001.vmdk - 90,347,230 KB

mis-000002.vmdk- 42,236 KB

Can anyone help me out, I've referred to this KB article but I don't think it applies:

http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/disks_fileinfo_gsx.html

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
continuum
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

yes - but do not delete files manually of course. Use snapshotmanagers "delete" function




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
9 Replies
continuum
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

you are using snapshots and forgot to delete them.

This VM will be much slower then it would be without such a large snapshot.

I would schedule a downtime of this VM of several hours and then delete the snapshots with snapshotmanager.




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

GFFG
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi

Sometimes smvi backup job reports as a fail because removing vmware snapshot times out on certain vm's. Mainly this one. As you know my backup job calls a vmware snapshot prior to filer backup ...then removes vmware backup.

Interesting solution. So you recommend downing vm and deleteing those 00001 and 00002 vdmk?

Reply
0 Kudos
continuum
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

yes - but do not delete files manually of course. Use snapshotmanagers "delete" function




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

Reply
0 Kudos
GFFG
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

That’s the thing there is no more registered snapshots in VMware's snapshot manager. Unless removing my only SMVI backup snap does it then something has to be manually deleted. Perhaps I'll have to open a call with Netapp. Kinda lost on what to do here. It's obviously some backup process that timed out or something that didn't "clean Up" properly.

Regards, Kyle

Reply
0 Kudos
jb12345
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

What version of SMVI do you have? We had the same issue when we first tried SMVI and a combination of updates from VMware & NetApp took care of the SMVI failure problem. We are on SMVI 1.0.1.0 but I don't recall what the ESX updates were.

Reply
0 Kudos
GFFG
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

V2.0, just got off the phone with Netapp, they are ghost VM snapshot's that aren't deleted, it's a problem with VMware. My snap shot manager shows none in there though! What the heck!

Regards, Kyle

Reply
0 Kudos
GFFG
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I guess the VMware removal of it's snapshot didn't work, the recommendation is to take another snapshoot then remove it. However we have some space issues with the NFS volume and taking a snap could cause the NFS to basically fill up. So we are going to see how much space it would take to do a snap prior.

Reply
0 Kudos
admin
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

One aspect of virtual machines that often leads to confusion is the

snapshot. What is a snapshot? How do snapshots work? What products use

the snapshot feature? What files are involved in snapshots?

These questions and more are all discussed in the new Knowledgebase article: Understanding virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESX. This is a fairly big topic so many links are provided to other relevant information.

Rick Blythe

Social Media Specialist

VMware Inc.

GFFG
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Of you can believe it, when the removal of the snapshot occurred manually by me yesterday it took awhile for the GUI to update the datastore view. Thus there was no problem per say, Upon going into the console and typing LS -L a DAY LATER, there was no snaps. I still have to look into the NFS volume now and see if I reclaim the space that should be there. Vmware support was great on the phone.

Regards, Kyle

Reply
0 Kudos