delete a snapshot tree correctly with lowest risk

[nblr06]

hello,

Does anyone know if there's a suggested sequence to delete snapshots safely?

I got an esxi version 7.0.3, 20328353 host environment and a VM which is located on 9th snapshot.

I wanna delete all the snapshots to make everything clean so that the management would be simpler.(and also reduce performance impact?)

This VM's hardware version is 19 but the operating system is quite old: CentOS 6 and the VM disk size is big: 3TB totally.

Which one or two choices are better?

* Online deletion: delete one snapshot at a time, from the latest to the base

* Online deletion: delete all snapshot

* Offline deletion: delete all snapshot

[RashidAdiyaramb]

I will suggest you to delete most recent snapshot first and wait for snapshot deletion task to be completed on vCenter. Then next most recent snapshot but keep an eye on vCenter task before initiating second snapshot deletion because snapshot deletion will take sometime based on the data on delta disk. 

[LucianoPatrão · Accepted solution]

It all depends on the downtime you can afford on that VM.

First, deleting one of all, it will consume the same time since it needs to consolidate all the data. So my recommendation is to delete all.

Again, if you should do it online or offline, offline is always better and faster. But, a 3Tb VM with 9 snapshots will take you many hours(depending on your Storage performance).

Even if you don't do it offline, the VM will be very slow, and it will be difficult to do anything in the Guest OS.

So my recommendation will be to delete all snapshots, and do it offline and reserve some hours of downtime on that VM.

Hope this can help.

[HailegebriealA]

If down time is tolerable, better if you choose offline delete option. Otherwise, online delete all option and consolidation will also works.