Vsphere 4 Snapshots Accumulating and cannot remove

[JGRANT072011101]

Hello all this is my first time post so please excuse any information I fail to mention that's needed.

I have vsphere 4  4.1.0, 260247 installed on a single server and have a virtual machine that I have issues with the snapshots not working correctly

Basically we have the third party backup software that utilizes vmware snapshots for the backups.  What I have noticed recently is that upon the completion of the backup job, it would state that it could not remove the snapshot because the file was in use.

My problem now is that it appears I have 40 or so snapshots and I have tried powering down the machine, creating a manual snapshot, then removing all snapshots, but it still does not remove them from the datastore browser.

I will attach my vmdk file, log file and a snapshot of the datastore browser and the provisioning of the disk.

What I have tried is to clone the virtual machine; this machine is 1.5TB thick and I setup an iscsi with 1.8TB of space and it says that it cannot clone the VM because the target datastore doesn't have sufficient space.  It appears as though it is showing that over 3.77TB of space is being used on the datastore with the VM...not sure why but i'm betting it's because of the snapshots

Needless to say I'm not running any backups until I get this fixed.  My other issue is that the datastore is filling up from these snapshots.

At any rate hope someone out there can assist

Thanks for the time

[DSTAVERT]

I would check with the backup software supplier for directions on removing the snapshots.

[idle-jam · Accepted solution]

if you have another 100% of the same space available you could do a clone of it and have the snapshot committed. then you can work further with backup vendor to limit such occurrence again ..

[JGRANT072011101]

I tried this with another datastore that had 1.81TB of free space, and it said that it didn't have enough free space, that it needed >3.6TB...this is odd since the vmfs only supports up to 2tb of space.

Any other suggestions?

The backup software suggests the issue is with vmware and the VCB API is the problem and to take it up with vmware support:

http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7115&p=29414&hilit=cannot+remove+snapshot#p29414

Thanks

[idle-jam]

then i would suggest you logging a call. first thing first would be actually commiting the snapshot first. one way is to use vmware converter to export and delete, and reimport in.

[JGRANT072011101]

Tried converter and it fails 1% through.

How do you commit the snapshots?

[idle-jam]

try this: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/01/07/delete-all-snapshots/ but then you will need alot of free space to achieve it. i would advise getting vmware support soon.

[JGRANT072011101]

Thanks for the quick replies

After reading more posts, I believe the problem may be with the backup software. I just updated to the latest patch and now when I try to run the backup job, it actually says it's removing snapshots via the VI client.  So it's been over an hour and still running so I'm hoping this will resolve the problem.

Just in case anyone is needing it the post I found was:

http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5745&p=23059

I'll post an update (probably tomorrow) on my results

Thanks again

[idle-jam]

good luck and all the best buddy ..

[JGRANT072011101]

Well still going and now down to 90gb free space on the datastore.

Do you know what will happen when that reaches to 0 on the space on the datastore?

Thanks

[JGRANT072011101]

Wow; after 14 hours believe it or not, the remove snapshots finally finished and now all the 46 snapshot files are cleaned up and gone; back to 500gb free now.  Thanks a million for all your help!

[DSTAVERT]

14 hours provides a lot of pacing time. Glad you are up and running. I would start a health check regimen to make sure you don't have similar issues in the future. Here is one of William Lams excellent scripts http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9842

[idle-jam]

i felt relief for you 😃

[golddiggie]

What B&R software are you using??

[JGRANT072011101]

Veeam version 5. But I was on the original release version 5; they have 5.0.2 which specifically addresses the snapshot issues; from what I understand now when you start a backup, it creates a snapshot, then removes the snapshot, before it begins the backup, to make sure that it will be able to create the snapshot before even beginning the backup.

Other than that issue it's a fabulous product in my opinion. We have 1.5TB VM's backing up over the network in under 45 minutes each night.