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VMware Snapshot removal
Dear,
I have a mail server hosted in on VM 5.5 which have a thin allocated space of 800GB and have around 1TB total space of storage .
Now there is no space left on datastore and we added 200GB to make the server up.We tried consolidation but failed due to lack of space.Tried deleting all snapshots but delta files are still present in backend and growing big.
Tried contacting support and they are recommending to power off the machine and consolidate which is a big problem as this is a live mail server and cannot afford long downtime.
I have some doubts regarding this which I hope you people can help.
1-If I try to clone this to a new datastore with 500Gb (actual server utility is less than 200GB), whether it will hang again as I heard it will automatically consolidate while cloning.
2-Whether we require the full current storage size in the new datastore for cloning.
3-How much time it will take if we are going for power off and consolidate this datastore.
4-If we try to clone while VM is powered on, whether it will make more size or make issues in consolidation for cloning.
Is there any other suggestions so that we can remove the delta files(we dont require any snapshots) and make the VM work fine.
Awaiting for responses :)
I have a mail server hosted in on VM 5.5 which have a thin allocated space of 800GB and have around 1TB total space of storage .
Now there is no space left on datastore and we added 200GB to make the server up.We tried consolidation but failed due to lack of space.Tried deleting all snapshots but delta files are still present in backend and growing big.
Tried contacting support and they are recommending to power off the machine and consolidate which is a big problem as this is a live mail server and cannot afford long downtime.
I have some doubts regarding this which I hope you people can help.
1-If I try to clone this to a new datastore with 500Gb (actual server utility is less than 200GB), whether it will hang again as I heard it will automatically consolidate while cloning.
2-Whether we require the full current storage size in the new datastore for cloning.
3-How much time it will take if we are going for power off and consolidate this datastore.
4-If we try to clone while VM is powered on, whether it will make more size or make issues in consolidation for cloning.
Is there any other suggestions so that we can remove the delta files(we dont require any snapshots) and make the VM work fine.
Awaiting for responses :)
VMware
Last Comment
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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Just be patient....
ASKER
:)
Actually it is stuck on 38% from long time..but I can see the new datastore size is increasing.
So hoping everything will finish fine.
Current datastore it is showing around 1TB utilization with all the snapshots.
How we can identify the actual size from the snapshots. biggest one?
Actually it is stuck on 38% from long time..but I can see the new datastore size is increasing.
So hoping everything will finish fine.
Current datastore it is showing around 1TB utilization with all the snapshots.
How we can identify the actual size from the snapshots. biggest one?
Look at the parent disk, this is the total size of the virtual disk, as you've defined it.
It's also available in Disk Properties, if you look at the virtual machine disks.
Snapshots (or child/delta disks) are temp, and these changes will be merged into the parent!
It's also available in Disk Properties, if you look at the virtual machine disks.
Snapshots (or child/delta disks) are temp, and these changes will be merged into the parent!
ASKER
Thanks a lot Andrew. It worked without any issue.
New VM is up and running. It took around 550GB + 125GB.
Hope there will be no delta file will create and grow unless we take a snapshot.
Once again a big salute for your support..much appreciated. :)
New VM is up and running. It took around 550GB + 125GB.
Hope there will be no delta file will create and grow unless we take a snapshot.
Once again a big salute for your support..much appreciated. :)
What you must check, is after a backup (that's what causes the snapshot!), so that's regular daily VMware Admin checks, you check all your VMs for snapshots, and deal with immediately.
the larger the snapshot, the longer it takes to merge!
the larger the snapshot, the longer it takes to merge!
I am doing a cloning right now and waiting to finish.Hope everything will work fine.
Thanks a lot for your valuable feedback...I'll let you know the outcome.