How to monitor snapshot deletion using esxtop command

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to monitor the snapshot deletion using esxtop when time stamps are not updating for virtual-mode RDM base disks.

Resolution

1. Log in as root to the ESXi host using SSH.
2. Run the esxtop command.
3. Press v (This command will display all the virtual machines which are Powered ON)
4. Locate the virtual machine on which the Snapshot consolidation task is running.
5. Type e to expand.
6. Enter the Group World ID (value from GID column).
7. Press Enter.
8. Make a note of the World ID (ID column) of the virtual machine on which the Snapshot consolidation task is running.
9. Type u to display the disk device statistics.
10. Type e to expand and enter the device number (naa.xxxxxxx value) where the snapshot consolidation process is writing to.

         Note:

• For a regular .vmdk file, the device is the datastore on which the flat.vmdk file is located.
• For a flat.vmdk, identifying the datastore device ID can be done by running esxcfg-scsidevs -m.
• For RDM, run vmkfstools -q against the pointer file to display the vml ID, which needs to be correlated with the output of ls -l /vmfs/devices/disks/ to get the device ID.

   11. Identify the Group World ID from step 6.

        Note: You may need to sort by MBREAD/s (press R) or MBWRTN/s (press T) to see the process at the top of the screen.

   12. Review the number IOPS and throughput for the Consolidation process (WRITES/s and MBWRTN/s columns) to ensure that there is activity and the process is working.