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How to identify a VMware datastore that is filling

The growth of a data store must be attributed to VM,Producers, ISO or temporary files before cleaning.

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VMware. Intermediate. 20 min

The growth of a data store must be attributed to VM,snapshots, ISO or temporary files before cleaning.

Avant de commencer : adaptez toujours les commandes et manipulations à votre environnement. Sur un système de production, prévoyez une backup ou un retour arrière lorsque l’action peut modifier la configuration.

Étapes à suivre

  1. 1

    Measuring capacity

    Note free space and evolution.

  2. 2

    List objectives.

    Look for large deltas.

  3. 3

    Examine VM files

    Identify dominant files.

  4. 4

    Check jobs

    Backup, replication or ISO can explain growth.

À retenir

  • Never delete a VMDK or delta file directly.
  • Document the chain of the city.
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Technical deep dive

VMware: storage, vMotion network and CBT must be validated by layer

Technical checkpoints

  • A datastore can fill due to snapshots, thin provisioning, logs or guest growth; provisioned capacity and actual consumption differ.
  • vMotion
  • CBT accelerates incremental backups, but invalid/corrupt CBT should be handled using the backup vendor procedure, not by arbitrarily deleting ctk files.

Targeted checks

For vMotion, test source-to-destination VMkernel using the real MTU; for storage, identify snapshots and growing files.

vmkping -I vmkX -d -s 8972 <peer>
esxcli storage filesystem list

Topic-specific pitfalls

  • Deleting a snapshot from datastore browser can break the chain; use Snapshot Manager/Consolidate.
  • A migration that works with small packets can still fail when jumbo frames are mismatched.

How to validate

  • The datastore regains headroom and no abnormal snapshot/consolidation remains.
  • vMotion succeeds with expected VMkernel/MTU and CBT backups become consistent again.
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