Help datastore full and cannot consolidate snapshots VMWARE

[forkies]

I have come in this morning to find that our Sims server has crashed, it somehow has filled the vmdk that sits on our ssd datastore. The vmdk is the only files that sit on this datastore (with its snapshots).

 

I have managed to get the server too boot up but I cannot delete any snapshots as it requires virtual disk consolidation which then says it cannot perform as there is not enough space (even with vm switched off). Any files deleted from the guest drive does not reflect on the datastore capacity either.

 

Any ideas on how to remove snapshots when you dont have any space on the datastore? I cannot move to another datastore as the vm wont boot as it still reflects to the snapshots on the original datastore even if modified in vmx file.

 

Any help appreciated.

[Domino]

Can you vmotion the machine to a larger datastore to perform the consolidation?

 

Failing that I'd suggest a call to vmware support to see if they can delete older snapshots without issue - it's a fairly involved process.

 

I'd also advise you take a alook at what you're doing with snapshots, the vmware KB is here: VMware KB: Best practices for virtual machine snapshots in the VMware environment

 

specifically:

 

Use no single snapshot for more than 24-72 hours. Snapshots should not be maintained over long periods of time for application or Virtual Machine version control purposes.

This prevents snapshots from growing so large as to cause issues when deleting/committing them to the original virtual machine disks. Take the snapshot, make the changes to the virtual machine, and delete/commit the snapshot as soon as you have verified the proper working state of the virtual machine.

Be especially diligent with snapshot use on high-transaction virtual machines such as email and database servers. These snapshots can very quickly grow in size, filling datastore space. Commit snapshots on these virtual machines as soon as you have verified the proper working state of the process you are testing.

[forkies]

I think reading up on VMware I am going to have to add additional storage to the datastore using an iSCSI device, then consolidate the snapshots.

 

It would appear you cannot even move the vm as it says there is not enough storage on the data store.

 

I am doing this after school today, currently sims is still up with about 400mb free on the datastore, so hopefully it will last for the day.

[forkies]

Incase anyone else has this issue I used this: VMware KB: Consolidating snapshots in ESX/ESXi 3.x and 4.x

and this: VMware KB: Cloning and converting virtual machine disks with vmkfstools to clone the VMDK files plus snapshots into one thin provisioned VMDK on another datastore which I could then reattach to the VM.