Have -delta.vmdk files, no -.vmsn files. Is it safe to delete all the snapshots from snapshot manager?

[dannton]

Hi,

Our VM froze because our ESXi datastore is full. I deleted -.vmsn  for the 1st snapshot file via CLI (using the 'rm' command).

VM is on thick disk and have 2 snapshots. so I still have -flat.vmdk, -delta.vmdk. ( for both snapshots ) and -.vmsn ( only for the 2nd snapshot ).

would it be ok if I delete all the snapshots from snapshot manager? atm we only have 8 GB on datastore and the snapshots file size is around 67GB

Thanks,

Dan

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

The missing .vmsn file shouldn't cause any issues as it is only required in case you want/need to revert to a snapshot. Anyway, with only 8GB free disk space you may consider to delete the snapshot with the VM being powered off. This will avoid the need of additional temporary disk space while the snapshots/delta data is merged into the base/flat disk.

André

[dannton]

Hi Andre, thank you for your response, I have another question about disk chain, please correct my understanding if I am wrong.

I have 150 GB allocated base/flat disk for VM1 with 2 snapshot each 2.5 GB and 27.5 GB.

this VM1 will keep on using vm1-000002-delta.vmdk ( up to max 150 GB ) which eventually will make my datastore run out of space since I only have 8GB free after deleted -.vmsn file, and in a way make the 150GB allocated on the flat is not actually being used.

Thanks,

Dan

[ThompsG]

Hi Dan,

Yes you are correct - VM1-flat.vmdk and VM1-000001-delta.vmdk are currently read-only with all new writes going to VM1-000002-delta.vmdk. The maximum size VM1-000002-delta.vmdk can grow to is the allocated size of the virtual disk which is 150G in this case.

Don't manually remove any of the *-delta files however you could consolidate up the snapshot that created VM1-000001-delta.vmdk which would gain you another 2.7GB of space.

Kind regards.

[dannton]

Thanks guys for the responses, really appreciate it!

Thanks,

Dan