Hi:
We had a Vmware 4.1 esxi and we are running a vm in the local store and two days ago the free space of datastore was 25gb and today its 5GB. Any ideas, see image.
Lee
Hello.
The VM has snapshots which are consuming the disk space.
Good Luck!
Hi:
Loesche-Fl-Ex01_1-000005.vmdk file has the 25GB, some related with memory???
There are snapshots there. Sometimes there is a disconnect between the client and what is actually in the datastore browser. The easy fix is to create a new snapshot in Snapshot Manager and then use the "Delete All" option to clean it up.
Refer to kb 1002310 for much more information about this.
Are you using something to back this VM up that would be taking snapshots in the process?
Message was edited by: vmroyale to include a link to kb 1002310
With the minimal free space you have left, you may also want to take a look at kb 1003302 before you do anything else. It would also be a really good idea to make sure you have a current backup. You could also use VMware Converter or any 3d party imaging utility to create an image.
as mentioned before you have something that is creating snapshots and not clearing them up.
You can actually see what snapshots are being used by looking at the scsi bit of the vmx file.
Are you using some sort of backup software? If so ensure that it is deleting the snapshots it creates.
The links sent to you by VMroyale will prove that you have snapshots but chances are they will fail when you try and consolidate the snapshots as you will most likelly run out of space.
to consolidate them is easy enough.
1: you need to stop what creating the snapshots in the first place. Probably some backup software
2: ensure you have a disk that has plenty of space. Obviously not the original one You will end up with whatever is there plus a consolidated vmdk file for each disk you have.
3: check what is the disk in use in the vm. Easy enough look at edit settings and look at your hard disks see what the full file name is. Or you can just look at the vmx file and look for scsi. You will see that the file in use is one that end in 0000X.vmdk (one of the snapshots)
4: then try using vmkfstools -i snapshot_name destination_name ensure you use the desscriptor files not the the large flat files.
for example
vmkfstools -i disk1-00005.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/new-disk_name/vm-name/consolidated_disk1.vmdk
this will create a new vmdk file that is the consoldiated one of you disks. Then edit settings remove disk and add new one pointing to exisitng vmdk file
5: if it fails then it gets messy. You need to look at the descriptor of the vmdk file and work your way back to the orginal file. Verifying CIDs , Parent CIDs and file descriptor names. Its not hard but its messy. THere are tools you can use to do this but they are not from vmware.
I have used one from here:
http://vmutils.blogspot.com/2009/05/re-troubleshooting-virtual-machine.html
good luck