"File system /storage/archive is low on storage space" warning in vCenter Server Appliance 6.7/7.x/8.x

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 6.0
• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• The VAMI page shows the warning message:
  File system /storage/archive is low on storage space. Increase the size of disk /storage/archive.
  
  
• During vCenter patching via the Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) a precheck warning and resolution is shown:

Warning        Disk /storage/archive in vCenter Server has total ## GB and free # GB. 
Resolution     There is not enough disk space on the disk(s). Increase disk space and try again.

or

Warning        In the vCenter Server Appliance, the disk /storage/archive has a total size of ## GB, of which # GB is free.
Resolution     Insufficient disk space is available on the vCenter Server Appliance. Increase the disk space and attempt the operation again.

• The /storage/archive partition near or is at 100% utilization.
• The appliance monitoring reports warnings.
• Monitoring tools might show below out of disk space alert:
  
  Guest File System:/storage/archive|Partition Utilization - VirtualMachine - One or more virtual machine guest file systems are running out of disk space

Environment

• VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x
• VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

This issue does not affect any operations of vCenter Server as the /storage/archive partition can be full by design.

This volume stores as much WAL history as possible, and is automatically cleaned up by the archiver service by automatically removing the oldest WAL segments.

Resolution

This volume will not register alarms as of vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1b.

After installing the new version, there will no longer be warnings in the Health Status portion of the Summary Tab in the VAMI. There will be no alarm even if partition is 100% full - as this is by design and has no impact on the running of the vCenter.

For VMware Aria Operations alarms refer article: Continuous disk space alerts for /storage/archive Guest File System in Aria Operations

You can run into this error during a vCenter 7.x or 8.x patch upgrade, reboot the vCenter and try again.

 

If you would like to delete files automatically when the vCenter /Storage/archive partition is full, see article,  The full /Storage/archive partition causes an alert for the customer's monitoring application

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:

• This issue is an erroneous alarm that does not affect the operations of vCenter Server.
• There is no impact to the vCenter Server
• If on vCenter 6.7 version less than U1b - you can safely ignore the alarm.